The Bulgarian Drug Verification Organization (BVOV) reports a sustained decrease in signals and suspected cases of falsification in the legal supply chain of medicines at the national level. BVOV recalls that the drug verification system has been operating in Bulgaria for seven years. Verifying the packaging in the system is a legal requirement for reimbursement by the health insurance fund.
Over 99% of pharmacies in Bulgaria are connected to the drug verification system. By the end of 2025, 271 marketing authorization holders will enter data for their medicinal products into the system. The connected end users are 2978 pharmacies, 207 hospital pharmacies and 161 wholesalers, BVOV adds. 6064 product codes of prescription medicines have been entered into the system. On average, more than four million transactions are carried out per week, and the number of packages written off exceeds 2.3 million per week. The total share of written-off packages is close to the average European indicator.
The national verification system is part of the unified European drug verification system, through which, on February 9, 2019, the verification process began in implementation of the European Directive to combat falsified medicines 2011/62/EU and Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/161. This is the largest public-private project in Europe and Bulgaria, in which all stakeholders in the drug supply participate, created to ensure authentic medicines for patients, preventing the entry and distribution of falsified medicines in the legal supply chain of medicines.