The Ministry of Health and Georgian government announced introduction of Generic drugs in Georgia. On the issue of expanding and encouraging Generic drug import in Georgia’s pharmaceutical market, expert in health research and finances Lela Sebriakova made some comments.
“One of the most vital method of decreasing prices of drugs on pharmaceutical market, is introduction of Generics. Generally generics are less expensive than brand drugs and have same basic substance of medicine. Expanding generic segment on the market will increase the option for the Georgian customer. However, Georgia needs to improve quality control drugs to minimize risks importing low quality Generics.
As for the producer country, Serbriakova notes that quality is not measured by the origin country but by its standard and quality certificate. “In Georgia, there should be one mechanism which will defines low and high quality generics. Sometimes price is the main determiner. For example EU is guarantee of its registered drugs,” expert said.
Quality assurance can be made at the registration process, in addition to documentary check drug will go through laboratory checking process.
We need to develop some rules which will assure drug quality maintenance to retailers, these are GMP distribution standards. We should install these standards. Some of the world’s highest quality drugs are produced in India, but there are other factories which do not produce such quality drugs, because of that the Ministry has to make importation of generics as transparent as possible, especially for doctors.