On October 28, Minsk /Olga Belyavskaya - BELTA/. The Government of Belarus will take into account the rise in medicine prices when implementing the general policy on increasing the population's income. This was stated today to journalists by the Prime Minister of Belarus Mikhail Myasnikovich, in response to a question from a BELTA correspondent. The cost of foreign and domestic medicinal preparations has increased with Belarus's transition to a unified ruble exchange rate. The head of government noted that no targeted payments from the state to reduce the cost of medicines are planned, but at the same time, targeted support will be provided to those citizens for whom taking medicines is mandatory due to certain diseases. "For all citizens for whom taking medicines is mandatory due to certain diseases, targeted social support is being increased," the Prime Minister said. Mikhail Myasnikovich pointed out that the rise in medicine prices is taken into account when forming the policy for increasing the income and living standards of the population. "We are not planning any targeted payments to reduce the cost of medicines, but this will be taken into account in the general consumer basket," he said. The Prime Minister added that the pharmaceutical market is a constantly growing market. "This year, medicine consumption has already increased by more than 8% compared to last year," he informed. "We will have a market capacity of about $700 million." The share of domestic medicines in the market is only 22% in value terms. The task is to significantly increase this figure. Today, Mikhail Myasnikovich visited a new production facility for the output of pharmaceutical substances and finished dosage forms, which opened on the basis of the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. A meeting on the development of the pharmaceutical industry of Belarus is being held here. Opening the event, the Prime Minister proposed to focus on three main blocks of issues. First of all, on the prospects for creating new pharmaceutical capacities in Belarus, including production facilities for original medicinal preparations. He also proposed to discuss the problems that currently exist in the field of testing and registration of medicinal preparations. According to the Prime Minister, it often takes a long time to register medicines. The third block of issues submitted for discussion concerns the procurement of medicinal preparations, as well as pharmaceutical substances. -0-

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