The Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices will be transferred from the Ministry of Health under the Government’s management. The new status of the Agency is defined in a bill that was adopted by the MPs in the first reading on February 24, IPN reports.
The draft law says the Agency’s director will be named and dismissed from post by the Government, while the deputies will be appointed by the Government at the suggestion of the director.
The informative note to the bill says that in the context of the centralized public procurement of drugs, it was ascertained that besides the fragmented prerogatives between the Agency of Medicines and the Ministry of Health, there is a potential conflict of interests inside the Agency. On the one hand, the Agency registers the producer prices and authorizes their pacing on the market. On the other hand, it stages the centralized procurement procedures with the participation of the same producers.
According to the authors of the bill, the new status of the Agency of Medicines will ensure the decisional and functional autonomy of the public authorities and a higher level of protection of consumer rights concerning the safety and financial accessibility of high-quality drugs.
