At the Government session, Minister of Healthcare Akmaral Alnazarova reported on the measures taken to support domestic manufacturers of pharmaceutical products, primeminister.kz reports.
The industry continues to work on import substitution. Thus, at the end of the first half of 2024 the volume of production of domestic pharmaceutical products increased to 95 billion tenge, the growth was 14.5%. 94 long-term contracts with 35 domestic manufacturers for the supply of about 4 thousand items have been concluded. By the end of this year it is planned to conclude a new pool of long-term contracts with 24 potential manufacturers for the supply of 1,412 units of medicines and medical instruments. Within three years it is planned to gradually reach the specified volumes of long-term contracts.

When purchasing medicines, preferences for domestic manufacturers are actively used. With the use of this mechanism in the current year, the supply of 196 items of medicines in the amount of 29.5 billion tenge is carried out. TOP-10 manufacturers in the first half of this year increased the output of finished products under the purchase of the Unified Distributor. The total growth was 21%,” Alnazarova said.

The Ministry of Healthcare has formed a list of priority medicines for treatment of the most common diseases based on the WHO list. A total of 283 items have been selected, of which 107 or 37.5% are produced in Kazakhstan. The head of the agency stressed that in the short term it is necessary to establish production of the remaining 178 priority drugs. This will ensure a sustainable basic level of drug security in the country.
As part of the National Project “Modernisation of Rural Health Care” in the design and construction of PHC facilities, domestic products are included in the list of mandatory equipment (more than 72%).
The Minister voiced a number of proposals for further support of domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers:

• To resume the financial leasing mechanism on the basis of KazMedTech JSC with priority purchase of domestically produced medical equipment.
• To increase the competitiveness of domestic pharmaceutical products, to exempt them from excise duties on ethyl alcohol used for the production of pharmaceutical products.

At the same time, in order to stimulate domestic manufacturers, the Ministry will implement the following measures:

• use of the mechanism of conditional discount for domestic pharmaceutical companies with a higher share of local content when procuring by “tender” method;
• determination of the terms of validity of long-term contracts depending on the depth of localisation.