A number of 43 new drugstores started work in Moldova in the first quarter of this year. Eleven of these are situated in Chisinau municipality. In Hancesti and Edinet, there were opened by seven drugstores and three pharmacies started work in Balti municipality, IPN reports, with reference to the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices.

In the period, 23 pharmaceutical enterprises in the districts of Hancesti and Edinet and in the municipalities of Balti and Chisinau stopped work. The Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices issued 85 decisions to extend and annul licenses for pharmaceutical activity and also cancelled eight licenses based on applications submitted by business entities.

Six applications to issue activity licenses were rejected because the applicants didn’t meet the legal requirements. The entrepreneurs planned to locate the drugstore at a distance shorter than 250 meters from an existing pharmacy or at a distance shorter than 500 meters from an existing pharmacy that also produces extemporal drugs.

It should be noted that in December 2017, Parliament adopted a bill to amend the Law on Pharmaceutical Activity, excluding the paragraph that stipulated that the newly founded drugstores will be situated at a distance shorter than 250 meters from an existing pharmacy and at a distance shorter than 500 meters from an existing pharmacy that also produces drugs, but the amendment hasn’t been yet published in the Official Gazette. 

According to the licensing register, in Moldova there are 895 drugstores, 439 of which are in the municipality of Chisinau.