MINSK, 20 March (BelTA) – All the Belarusian pharmaceutical enterprises will be certified for compliance with GMP standards by 2016, BelTA learned from Viktor Shein, Deputy Director of the Pharmaceutical Industry Department of the Belarusian Healthcare Ministry, on 19 March.

According to the source, the certification of all the manufacturing facilities for compliance with GMP standards will be completed this year. "We are expanding the network of our dealerships abroad. We are diversifying our target markets," noted the official. Once certified for compliance with GMP standards, Belarusian pharmaceutical companies will be able to sell their products to the markets where Belarusian producers have not been represented yet. "We are now shipping more to Mongolia and Vietnam. We are going to conquer these markets by exploiting the opportunities we didn't have in the past, by taking part in tenders. On the whole, all the export operations are profitable," he said.

"I've been to Russia recently. Colleagues from the Healthcare Ministry told me that in the near future we will be able to reregister prices for our medications on the list of vital medications. The step will definitely improve our competitive ability on the Russian market as far as medications are concerned," said Viktor Shein.

Once the single market of medications and medical products is up and running in the Eurasian Economic Union in 2016, the domestic competition between pharmaceutical companies is expected to rise. According to Viktor Shein, Belarusian pharmaceutical companies are ready to work in the new conditions.

This year the share of Belarus-made medications on the home market is expected to reach 50% in terms of money, nevertheless, there are plans to export more, too. "We intend to get all the domestic manufacturers to raise their output by more than 40% in order to satisfy the domestic demand and secure rather broad presence on all the export markets. Thanks to efforts to certify our enterprises we successfully utilize our export potential, including in the countries where we had no presence before," said the Deputy Director of the Pharmaceutical Industry Department of the Belarusian Healthcare Ministry.

Speaking about the pricing policy, Viktor Shein said that prices for medications are raised only for titles where new substances cost more than old ones. Prices for medications without foreign components are not raised. "The state retains control over prices for 35 medications. The list used to exceed 180 titles. These are medications that enjoy drastic demand on the home market and have minimal profitability and sometimes even negative profitability. But since we take care of all the population strata, since we provide all the citizens with affordable, effective, and quality medications, we secure our profitability and replenish the home market by creating new medications, including the development of generics," said the official.