Patients in Ukraine pay between 1.5 and 3.5 times more for medicines than their counterparts in Europe. The reason is straightforward: reimbursement covers only a small portion of the market. The Patients of Ukraine Charitable Foundation submitted 76 medicines for inclusion in the Affordable Medicines programme. To date, only 15 have been approved.
It was with these figures that the Foundation’s Executive Director, Inna Ivanenko, took part in PHARMEXPERT 2026 — a forum dedicated to the new regulatory landscape of Ukraine’s pharmaceutical market.
At the same time, shortages persist in centrally procured medicines: docetaxel, fulvestrant, and exemestane have been unavailable in most regions for over six months. Coagulation factors for haemophilia are in critical short supply in certain regions. Children with cancer continue to wait for topotecan, methotrexate, and nilotinib.
There are, however, positive developments. In 2025, new managed access agreements were signed — bringing the total to 58 such agreements covering vaccines and therapies for Fabry disease, Pompe disease, haemophilia, leukaemia, and lung cancer. This is a model that warrants broader implementation.
When discussing access to essential medicines, the patient community emphasises several priorities:
- Establishing a medicine buffer reserve as a one-off measure — so that patients are not left dependent on unreliable suppliers, and medicines are consistently available in hospitals.
- Expanding the list of reimbursed medicines, as many patients with chronic conditions continue to bear unaffordable out-of-pocket costs on their own.
Addressing these issues will require additional funding from the state budget.
