Analysis of the current state and problems of pharmacy production of medicines in UKRAINE
Authors: Nemchenko A. S. , Тsareva К. О. , Khomenko V. M. 
Published: July 2020

The current state of providing of the population of Ukraine with extemporaneous drugs produced in pharmacies is one of the most acute social problems of the healthcare system and pharmacy. In this regard, the analysis and determination of the directions for solving of the existing problems of pharmacies’ production activities, as well as the development of approaches to increase the availability of extemporaneous medicines for the population are of particular relevance.            The aim of the work is an analysis of the current state and problems of the extemporaneous drugs’ production using a questionnaire of pharmaceutical workers in production pharmacies in Ukraine.
The object of the study have been scientific publications, as well as the study of the opinions of pharmaceutical workers in production pharmacies for the compounding (production) of extemporaneous drugs. The studies were carried out by using questionnaire survey method, systematization and generalization methods.
Conducted nationwide questionnaire of the heads of pharmacy establishments and pharmacy specialists has been showed that over the past decade there has been a tendency to enlarge pharmacy production of medicines: if in 2010 biggest part of production pharmacies (85.50%) had small volumes of production - up to 20 thousand units, now about a third part – 29.63%, are pharmacies with significant production volumes, namely from 100 to 500 thousand production units (24.07%). An analysis of the profitability of production pharmacies has made it possible to determine that the main part of them is profitable (57.14%), but has certain problems. It has been established that the reason for this condition is an untimely revision of tariffs for the production of medicines – only a third part of pharmacies do this once a year. At the same time, the situation has not changed over the past ten years, while 95% of production pharmacies looked at tariffs no more than once every 3 years. According to the results of the study, the main problems of pharmaceutical manufacturing of medicines were identified, namely: high VAT rate (60.71%), complicated licensing conditions (55.36%) and lack of registration for substances (46.43%). It was also suggested a set of measures and outlined the priority areas for reforming the system of providing the population with extemporaneous medicines.           
According to the results of the nationwide questionnaire of the heads of pharmacy establishments and pharmacy specialists of production pharmacies, the main trends of establishments have been established, namely the enlargement of pharmacy production of medicines, the low profitability of such pharmacies due to untimely revision of tariffs for the production of medicines, as well as the sales leaders - a group of dermatological and anti-allergic extemporaneous medicines. The study has also identified the current problems of pharmacy production, priorities in reforming the providing of extemporaneous medicines to the population, and a set of approaches to increase their availability.