During 4-5 of March, during a working meeting in the building of Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which was attended by MOH representatives, public activists and MPs Olha Bohomolets (Petro Poroshenko Bloc), Hanna Hopko (“Samopomich”), Oksana Korchynska (Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko), Iryna Sysoyeno ((“Samopomich”), Mariya Ionova (Petro Poroshenko Bloc), Hliv Zahoriy (Petro Poroshenko Bloc), Oleksandr Tretyakov (Petro Poroshenko Bloc), Kostyantyn Yarynich (Petro Poroshenko Bloc) it was agreed to submit a joint package of the draft laws on the transfer of  the public drug procurement to the international organizations.

The authors of all 3 packages of the draft laws, who have reached an agreement on the controversial provisions, agreed to withdraw their draft laws and submit a joint package of the draft laws. In particular, it was agreed to add the following items to the draft laws:

• In addition to medications, the subject matter of the procurement by international organizations are medical devices and related services of procurement and logistics;
• The Ministry of Health of Ukraine will be the main manager of the funds;
• Determined that the applicant does not have not declare the price of medicines and medical products;
• The regulations that need to be created or changed to eliminate corruption risks with the indication of the specific ministers or departments will be specified in the final provisions.
• The medications and medical products will be supplied in the package and labeling in the original language;
• The registration fee and all related fees are canceled;
• Registration of the medications and medical products will take 7 working days including the examination.

The only unresolved controversial question appeals to the term of procurement by international organizations. Ministry of Health, public activists, and authors of the Draft Laws №2150 and №2151 emphasis the need of procurement transferring for at least 5 years, until the Ministry of Health will be reformed and all the corruption schemes will be destroyed. While the authors of the alternative draft laws propose to limit the time of drug procurement by international organizations to 3.5 years.

The important thing is that all the parties of negotiations agreed on expanding the number of international organizations through which drug procurement will be implemented. In addition to specialized funds, organizations and UN mechanisms (which include, among others, WHO and UNICEF), the list was replenished with 5 more organizations, such as: IDA Foundation (Netherlands), Crown Agents (UK), Partnership for supply chain management (PFSCM) (America), Global Drug Facility (GDF) (Switzerland), Vaccine Alliance GAVI (Switzerland).

On Tuesday, the joint packages of draft laws, signed by all of the above mentioned deputies will be submitted to Parliament.  The authors hope that it will pass to the Committee on Health quickly and be put to the vote at the first reading of Verkhovna Rada due to the urgent need to procure mediations for terminal patients.