Health Minister Oleh Musiy insists that control over sales of codeine-containing medicines under prescriptions should be strengthened, but without the introduction of the strict record keeping and storage, the minister said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

"I've signed letters on the strict control over the sale of such medicines under prescriptions, so no package of such medicines is sold without prescription. There will not be the strict record keeping and storage," he said.

Commenting on the conflict of one of the producers of codeine-containing medicines – Interchem (Odesa) – with the State Service for Medicinal Products of Ukraine, which suspended production of some medicines, Musiy said that now production of such Amixin and morphine sulphate in pills is unblocked.

"It is left to prove for codeine-containing medicines that their production is in line with GMP standards," he said.

As reported, referring to an open letter of Interchem pharmaceutical company sent to Health Minister Musiy, recently the State Service for Medicinal Products permitted to resume production of some medicines suspended on December 30, 2013, apart from codeine-containing medicines.

The service still bans the production of codeine-containing medicines – Tercodin, Codterpinum IC, Codesan IC, Pyatirchatka IC and Pentalgin IC.

The service said that the ban was imposed after an off-schedule check of Interchem conducted on December 23-27, 2013. The production of Tercodin, Codterpinum IC, Codesan IC, Intagra IC, morphine sulphate, Amixin IC, Pyatirchatka IC and Pentalgin IC was suspended.

Interchem double liability company is one of the leading Ukrainian manufacturers of medicine and pharmaceutical substances. It has a full production cycle from the design and synthesis of new biologically active molecules, and the industrial production of pharmaceutical substances up to the production of medicines and sales of products to end consumers. The company is among the top ten largest Ukrainian medicine producers and the top 20 of all producers present on the Ukrainian market.