Today, the Health Fund made a decision to expand the positive list of drugs with 9 new generic drugs, in 20 dosage forms, which will allow patients to receive a total of 59 brand names of these drugs at the expense of the Fund. The director of FZOM, Sašo Klekovski, reported on Facebook that these are drugs for blood diseases, diseases of the heart and blood vessels, against high blood pressure and high fats, as well as antidepressants and a drug to treat dementia.

– For blood diseases the drugs are Prasugrel and Ticagrelor, for diseases of the heart and blood vessels, against high pressure and high fat are Nebivolol, Perindopril, Valsartan and Fenofibrate, for the central nervous system (antidepressants and to treat dementia) are Escitalopram, Mementine and Duloxetine . The estimated impact on the Fund's budget on an annual level is about 1 million euros. This is the first addition to the list since 2014. The fund is dedicated to access to better medicines and encourages all stakeholders to further additions - wrote director Klekovski.

According to "Sloboden Pechat" sources from the Management Board, the decision to expand the positive list will come into force 8 days after it is published in the Official Gazette. Health Minister Arben Taravari announced that he will sign the decision tomorrow.

Following the proposal of the Ministry of Health, the Management Board of FZOM voted to expand the positive list of drugs. Tomorrow I will gladly sign the new positive drug list with 9 new drugs, Taravari wrote on Facebook.

He claimed so far that the positive list is not being expanded because he is waiting for "a new composition of the Management Board of the Fund", but our information is that the same composition of the Management Board voted for expansion today. The problem so far has been that the Commission, which proposes the drugs, proposed that only part of the dosage forms be on the positive list, which was not accepted, and that is why the multi-month delay occurred. Today, finally, everyone has agreed that if a pharmaceutical company proposes to have its drug on the positive list, it must apply to all dosage forms registered in MALMED for the same drug, be it 2, 4, 8 milligrams or some other dose. Our sources at the Fund claim that the Commission proposed drugs with proprietary names, which was a problem, as the generic name is what is acceptable.

FZOM of the Management Board decided today to cancel a bunch of fines for family doctors from 2023 and 2024 and to return some of them the money collected for fines. These penalties refer to chronic therapy prescribed by general practitioners to patients with chronic diseases.

Finally, FZOM made a decision that there is no longer a need to refer patients based on recommendations for the five drugs that appeared in the official gazette last year. The decision of FZOM is to be welcomed. And all the cut money to the family doctors for that therapy will be returned to them from September to December! We will reduce referrals to specialists and mistreatment of adult patients, says the president of the Association of Private Family Physicians, Dr. Lilija Čolakova Dervishova.