One in five Ukrainians has problems with access to medicines – expert
28 September 2025 11:35
The conflict in Ukraine’s pharmaceutical market has exacerbated systemic problems – patients face shortages and high prices for medicines, and the state has failed to ensure effective regulation. Anatoliy Amelin, executive director and co-founder of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future think tank, wrote about this on his Facebook page, Kommersant Ukrainian reports .
“Ukrainians pay 88% of the cost of medicines out of their own pockets, while the state covers only 12% through social programs,” Anatoliy Amelin emphasized.
According to him, even tough decisions of the authorities did not work.
“The Ministry of Health recognized that the ban on marketing payments did not lead to the desired price reduction because factory prices remained outside the state control,” he explained.
“The losers in the end are the citizens of Ukraine, some of whom will face a shortage of goods, others will face an increase in their expenses for the purchase of pharmaceutical products,” the expert summarized.
Conflict in the pharmaceutical market
The root of the conflict lies in changes in the regulation of the pharmaceutical market initiated by the government to reduce drug prices.
on February 12, 2025, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy enacted the decision of the National Security and Defense Council on additional measures to ensure the availability of medicines, which provided for a 30% reduction in prices for the top 100 drugs and a ban on marketing payments between manufacturers and pharmacies.
However, even before these measures formally came into force, Darnitsa raised the prices of its drugs by 120% at the end of 2024, which became a catalyst for the conflict.
On March 1, 2025, the five largest pharmacy chains – ANC, Podorozhnyk, Pharmacy 9-1-1, Wish You Well and Dobroho dnia – drastically reduced purchases of Darnitsa’s products, controlling about 70% of the retail pharmaceutical market.
Since then, public battles between manufacturers, pharmacies and distributors have been going on. And all this has already led to significant economic losses, Amelin emphasizes.
Economic losses include:
– Loss of jobs (over 1000 layoffs at Darnitsa alone)
– Reduced tax revenues from falling sales
– Risks to exports (the company operates in 20 countries)
– Threat to the country’s medicinal safety in wartime
As Kommersant Ukrainsky wrote, ordinary Ukrainians are losing out on the country’s pharmaceutical market because of the war.
