On Thursday, 20 June, the Saeima adopted in the final reading amendments to the Pharmacy Law in order to facilitate the monitoring and accessibility of medicines and medical devices.

The law provides for the right of a pharmacy to distribute medicinal products to another pharmacy. As the authors of the draft law note, in practice, pharmacies already carry out this in certain cases, if a particular medicinal product is out of stock of one pharmacy or a pharmacy manufactures medicines on the spot. This will make it easier for patients to receive medicines closer to their place of residence, particularly in the case of regions and small pharmacies.

Furthermore, the law clarifies the provision on the right of a pharmacy to purchase medicines from manufacturers and importers of medicinal products from other Member States of the European Union or the European Economic Area in order to ensure faster delivery of medicines to patients.

In case of significant state, public, environmental or other threat, an international organisation or other foreign institution, which is not a pharmaceutical company, in agreement with the Ministry of Health, will be able to deliver medicines to Latvia. For veterinary medicines, the supplier will have to agree with the Ministry of Agriculture. Until now, the law did not provide for such possibility, and, as the authors of the draft law from the Ministry of Health note, this created a risk of unavailability of medicines in case of emergency.

The amendments also improve the procedure for authorising advanced therapy medicines. These are gene therapy medicinal products, including tissue engineered products and somatic cell therapy medicinal products. It is intended that the patient will be able to receive compensation for the harm caused to his or her health or life caused by the use of an exceptional advanced therapy medicinal product in medical treatment. As the authors of the draft law note, this new field of biomedicine offers opportunities in the treatment of diseases and dysfunctions of the human body.

Saeima Press Service