OREANDA-NEWS. February 27, 2010. Since August 2009 the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in Moscow (the Moscow FAS Russia) has considered 55 administrative cases against sellers of medicines (Part 1 Article 14.6 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations) and imposed fines accordingly. Around 30 cases on similar violations are in the process of consideration, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Joint inspections by the Moscow OFAS Russia and prosecutor's office as well as monitoring prices of the largest pharmacy chains in Moscow revealed wild-scale violations of pricing procedures for the medicines included in the List of vitally important and essential medicines.

Pricing procedures applied by the pharmacies attracted attention due to a considerable increase of prices for medicines in 2009.

In January 2010 FAS started monitoring prices monthly on both retail and wholesale markets. The Moscow OFAS Russia also plans to analyze the wholesale markets of medicines.