OREANDA-NEWS. February 13, 2014. Due to swings in the foreign currency exchange rates, prices for medicines in Moldova have grown by 2% - 13.5% for the last two years, -the Chamber of Accounts of Moldova.

The medicine prices in the country are directly dependent on swings in the MDL/foreign currency exchange rate, auditors of the Chamber of Accounts say. As the auditors inspected the Medicine Agency’s pricing policies for medicines and medical devices, they found out that for the last two years the foreign currency prices in for medicines had stayed the same, whereas MDL prices had increased by 2.06% -13.45%.

According to the auditors, the population of Moldova paid MDL 0.7 million more for 17 names of medicines. In 43 cases, the producer’s price was more than 100% higher than that established by the Agency for Medicines. If the producers had accepted the price formed by the Agency, the imported medicines would have cost MDL 4.1 million cheaper. According to the auditors, the Agency sometimes neglected rules of notifying about producer-fixed prices. For example, despite the legislative norms, the price for 332 names of medicines was fixed without the evaluation sheet, which is the only supporting document the producer provides. The price for 22 generic drugs was fixed in violation of the rule.

For example, the violation of the procedure of fixing prices for 5 generics entailed extra costs of MDL 76.6 thousand. Besides, the auditors pointed out the imperfection of the computer-aided data system of the State Registry of Medicines. Although auditors failed to discover any serious pricing shortcomings, they concluded in their report the control over the pricing should be toughened.