Roszdravnadzor is authorized to make control purchases of drugs

At its meeting held on February 7, 2018, the Russian State Duma adopted in the first reading a draft law that authorizes Roszdravnadzor to make control purchases, which will allow to combat the sales of substandard medicines and violations of the rules for providing paid medical services.

According to the document, the employees of the agency will be able to use this form of control “when verifying the compliance with mandatory requirements for medical activities in terms of compliance with the procedure established for the provision of paid medical services,” and “when exercising the federal state supervision in the area of the circulation of medicines in order to verify the compliance with the rules for issuing the medicines for human use and/or compliance with the ban on the sale of falsified, substandard, counterfeit medicines for human use.”

“Roszdravnadzor already has a number of powers to monitor the quality of medicines,” said Leonid Ogul, the Deputy Chairman of State Duma Committee on Health Protection. “However, there are still significant gaps in this area. For example, there are violations of the rules for prescribing and issuing the medicinal products, especially the psychotropic and antibacterial drugs.” “Often, the medicinal products and medical devices are sold either without a prescription, or despite a ban, or without a relevant sales permit in the pharmacy,” said the deputy of State Duma.

Mr. Ogul considers it especially important that the additional authority of Roszdravnadzor “will finally extend to the area of online sales.” “There is also a tremendous number of complaints, objections, and violations in this area,” he said.