Ukrainian Vice Premier Kostiantyn Hryschenko has said that there will not be a shortage of imported medicine at pharmacies when the requirements of the law on the licensing of imported medicine take effect on March 1, 2013.

"There are no grounds to say that from March 1, 2012 imported medicine will disappear at Ukrainian pharmacies. There are no objective reasons for this, as we're monitoring the situation of the availability of medicine at pharmacies," he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.

Hryschenko said that the introduction of the requirements of the law on licensing of imported medicine from March 1, 2013 would be gradual, with constant checks on the range of medicine at pharmacies by the state authorities.

Chairman of the State Administration on Medicinal Products Oleksiy Soloviov said that medicine stocks are stored at warehouses of distributor companies, which satisfy 90% of the medicine market in Ukraine - and there is enough for Ukrainian patients for three or four months.

"In 2012, 475 million packages of imported medicine were sold in our country. Today at warehouses of just five distributors, which satisfy the demand of 90% of the market, have 204 million packages – this is 40%. These stocks are enough to last our patients at least three or four months," he said.