Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The pharmaceutical market of Uzbekistan is developing at a dynamic pace, and the creation of a single digital centralized public procurement platform is required to improve the processes of drug supply in the republic. This opinion was expressed in a conversation with UzDaily.uz by the director of the frontier markets of the international biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, Natalya Mironyuk, during the Second Pharmaceutical Forum of Uzbekistan.

The Second International Pharmaceutical Forum has started in Tashkent: the participants of the event discuss topical issues of the pharmaceutical market of the republic and other countries. Particular attention was paid to legislative initiatives for the development of the pharmaceutical industry.

According to Natalya Mironyuk, the pharmaceutical market of Uzbekistan is one of the fastest growing in the EAEU. However, for its further improvement, solutions are required that will help manufacturers and other market participants to work effectively on it, in particular, a centralized and transparent public procurement process.

“Today, public procurements are distributed among different resources and it is quite difficult to conduct analytics on them. It is difficult for us, as a company that has recently entered the Uzbek market, to navigate and understand how much the drug needs to be produced, where our patient is, how often he needs medicine, whether there is a sufficient amount of the drug with the required expiration date in the republic. For such analytics, a digital tool is needed that will allow to combine all the processes taking place in the pharmaceutical market in terms of procurement,” Mironyuk said.

The representative of AstraZeneca explained that today the purchase of medicines is carried out by various government agencies and medical institutions. In her opinion, it is necessary to centralize this process and close it to one body, to create a single platform for negotiations. This will allow to work with long-term contracts for patented drugs with the best price and delivery times, which will reduce the burden on the budget. In addition, the procurement service must be made open and convenient for all market participants so that businesses can see the needs of the state and quickly respond to them.

Natalya Mironyuk clarified that the state is already working to improve the market, in particular, it is developing a compulsory health insurance fund, investing in modern diagnostic equipment, allocating additional money for programs for diseases that contribute more to mortality. Also, in her opinion, the complex problem of the market is being solved - counterfeit products. “It seems to me that the government’s initiative to introduce drug labeling will help resolve this issue. Of course, it is difficult, but I think that the introduction of labeling, the close attention of the state to the processes of importing and selling medicines will help to cope with it,” Mironyuk said.

In addition, diagnostics of serious diseases and their therapy are actively developing in Uzbekistan today. “We see that the social orientation of providing patients, especially with such serious diseases as oncology, oncohematology and other financially costly areas, is actively developing,” said Natalya.

Speaking about the work of AstraZeneca in Uzbekistan, she specified that the company is considering the possibility of expanding its presence. Today, some AstraZeneca drugs have already been registered in the republic, in particular, for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and bronchial asthma. “Our next step is therapy in deeper and more complex nosologies such as rare diseases, oncology and oncohematology. We hope that our innovative solutions will help patients in Uzbekistan feel safe and healthy,” the company representative added.