The carrying out of recommendations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by Ukraine in part of the increase of value added tax (VAT) on medicine to 21% instead of 7% would entail the sharp growth in the prices of medicine, the Pharmacy Professional Association of Ukraine (APAU) has said in a press release.

APAU Director Volodymyr Rudenko said that the formal increase of VAT by 13% would result in the increase in the prices of medicine by almost two times, as in this case all pharmaceutical market players would have to set new markups on medicines.

"One should understand that the pharmaceutical market consists of three key elements: medicine manufacturers, distributors and retail chains, pharmacies. All of them pay taxes. If VAT on medicine grows from 7% to 21%, everyone would have to raise their markups. The prices of medicines would grow not by 13%, but at least by 40%. Add risks that market players would include due to the unstable hryvnia exchange rate in the figure," Rudenko said.

He said that APAU experts are working on legislation to improve industrial pharmacy industrial and pharmacy practice standards to the European requirements, which would promote the increase of affordability for medicines.