The Ministry of Health of Ukraine under the leadership of Viktor Lyashko is increasingly performing the functions of a state regulator and increasingly resembling a service platform for pharmaceutical corporations. Instead of systemic reforms, there are backroom decisions, instead of patient protection, there are policies that are beneficial to large market players. The set of scandals surrounding the Ministry of Health has long ceased to look accidental and forms a holistic management model.
One of the most revealing decisions was the initiative to allow the sale of medicines outside the pharmacy chain - at gas stations and through vending machines. Under the guise of slogans about "accessibility", the dismantling of the system of pharmaceutical control, responsibility and quality is actually proposed. For the market, this means an expansion of sales channels, and for patients - an increase in the risks of self-medication and counterfeiting.
At the same time, the Ministry of Health demonstrates complete passivity regarding the pricing policy of pharmaceutical manufacturers. In particular, the company Farmak ignores presidential decrees on stabilizing the cost of medicines and continues to raise prices. The real structure of cost and margin remains closed, while distribution is actually concentrated in two affiliated operators - BaDM and Optima-Pharm , which control over 85% of the wholesale market.
The financial indicators of these structures only confirm the cartel model. Over the past four years, BaDM's revenue has reached UAH 67.8 billion, and its profit has increased 3.5 times. Optima-Pharm has increased its profit 11 times over the same period, to UAH 3.57 billion. Even the fines of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine in the amount of UAH 4.8 billion seem disproportionate to the excess profits received and do not change the rules of the game.
A separate, most toxic issue is the presence of Farmak products on the Russian market and in the temporarily occupied territories. Despite public statements about the termination of any ties, Ukrainian medicines continue to appear in the aggressor state through networks of intermediaries in Belarus, Turkey, EU countries, and offshore chains. The Ministry of Health does not demonstrate any public reaction to these facts.
Viktor Lyashko came to the ministry with the rhetoric of change and reform, but in fact became the face of the Ministry of Health losing its regulatory role. During his tenure, the ministry systematically tolerates pharmaceutical cartels, turns a blind eye to prices, and allows schemes that directly contradict national interests in wartime. This is no longer a series of mistakes, but signs of a systemic capture of a state body by private interests — with direct consequences for the health and safety of patients.
