The Competition Promotion and Consumer Protection Committee within the framework of the unified information system “FAIR TECH” has developed a separate module. The main goal is to further improve the system of consumer rights protection and interactive control over the work of legislative norms in the pharmaceutical field in favor of the consumer.
This new system will speed up the processing of online applications and prevent potential corruption. Also, as a new direction in the industry, an effective mechanism will be introduced to compensate for losses caused to consumers.
The legal basis for this is determined in accordance with the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated October 26, 2022 No. PP-411 “On additional measures to provide the population with high-quality medicines and medical products”.
According to the new regulation, from May 1, 2023, if, as a result of scanning using a QR code through the “Soliq” mobile application, an overstatement of markups to the established retail prices of medicines is detected, a message about this is automatically sent to the Competition Committee, a system for returning excess funds to the consumer is launched. Currently, the network works with the electronic systems of the Tax Committee and the Pharmaceutical Industry Development Agency, which is integrated and cooperates in the mutual exchange of information. In order to ensure the effective functioning of the quality control system and the fast and high-quality performance of technical work, the Regional Departments of the Competition Committee were provided with tablets.
For reference, in accordance with the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On measures to further improve the provision of the population with medicines and medical products” (No. DP-2647 dated from October 30, 2016), wholesale and retail sales of medicines and medical products are carried out with the use of marginal trade markups, determined regardless of the number of intermediaries involved in the supply, for wholesale – in the amount of no more than 15% of the purchase price, for retail – no more than 20% of the wholesale price.
