YEREVAN. - Armenia’s Ministry of Healthcare will leave a competition opportunity for importing medicines through parallel import.

Armenia’s Deputy Minister of Healthcare Sergey Khachatryan said the aforementioned in the parliament today, introducing the bill on the new edition of the Law on Medicines. The debates round the document were launched today.  

Parallel import (when not only the manufacturer or official distributor, but also any other supplier can import) will be possible only if the medicine is registered both in the manufacturing country and Armenia, as well as in the third country from where it will be imported.

According to Khachatryan, the unessential difference between different consignments of the same medicine (difference in smell, color, etc.) not impacting their therapeutic action won’t be considered.

“We thereby want to create a competition for the distributors so that they strive to lower the prices,” the Deputy Minister said.

Several large importers, which have a large number of distributor agreements with international companies, are against the parallel import to Armenia.