Russian antitrust suspects organized crime in pharm sales

MOSCOW, Aug 26 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service believes there is an organized crime activity in the sphere of supplies and sales of pharmaceutical products in the country, Director Igor Artemyev told Rossiya 24 television channel on Friday.

“We are talking about thousands of cartels in medicine, we are talking about almost all tenders being held with violations, we are talking about organized criminality in this sphere – by the way we are talking about this for the first time – and we are sure that our prices for pharmaceutical products are high because of this reason – collusion,” he said.

The antimonopoly service has to open over 1,000 cases over signs of excessive prices for drugs and hopes that law enforcement agencies will assist, he said.

Prices for pharmaceuticals containing the same substance and sold in Russia under various brands are in many cases excessive and differ a lot, Artemyev said.

“There is our investigation how pharmaceuticals were registered already two years ago… If we take for example No-Spa, which is known to everyone. The chemical formula of the substance is absolutely the same whether this is called No-Spa or drotaverine, another 30 names of the very same No-Spa – these are various trade names. The difference in prices officially registered by state bodies is twelve times. And in some cases even 160 times,” Artemyev said.

End