Five pharmaceutical groups want the Criminal Code changed to make it a crime to produce or sell medicines outside the legal rules, the Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union (BPU) said. The aim is to cut the supply and use of dangerous products, including those sold online.
The changes would cover people and firms that are not wholesale or retail medicine traders but make medicinal products or put them on the market outside the set rules.
The letter is signed by the BPU, the Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Manufacturers in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Association for the Development of Parallel Trade in Medicines, the Bulgarian Association of Wholesale and Retail Medicine Traders and the Bulgarian Generic Pharmaceutical Association. It is addressed to the prime minister, the speaker of parliament, the health minister and the justice minister.
The groups want the Criminal Code to include criminal liability for illegal production of and trade in medicines. They urge that a bill amending the code be sent to parliament soon. They also propose that the government and parliament set up a working group with representatives of the five groups.
They say the current liability under the Law on Medicinal Products in Human Medicine is only administrative and does not deter offenders. In online sales, the websites are in most cases run by unknown people or by firms with no assets from which fines could be collected.
The groups say administrative tools have not been effective enough to find offenders and hold them to account, so the full toolkit of criminal proceedings is needed.
A few days before the letter, health minister Katya Ivkova said the Criminal Code has gaps. She will ask the head of the Bulgarian Drug Agency for proposals on legal changes that would allow such trade to be treated as a crime.
Ivkova said 73 online platforms have been found to offer medicines illegally. More than 30 of them are sites that mainly sell peptides.