Yuri Savko
A man without a medical education who imagines himself the master of the Ukrainian pharmaceutical market now has every chance of outdoing his "master" in terms of damage and harm inflicted on domestic medicine.
We are talking about the previously inconspicuous Deputy Minister of Health of Ukraine – Yuriy Savko.
Yuriy Ostapovich Savko is formally responsible for European integration issues in the relevant department. However, in practice, as a close friend of the ousted O. Musiy, he oversees the pharmaceutical industry and the Ministry of Health's main expert body responsible for drug approvals—the State Expert Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine (SEC).
It goes without saying that Musiy personally appointed him to the position of Deputy Minister. Prior to this, Savko served as the executive director of APRAD—the Association of Manufacturers of Innovative Pharmaceuticals. APRAD represents and lobbies for the interests of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies in Ukraine.
The Association's objectives are to protect and promote the interests of member companies in the development of legislation and regulations governing the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors.
Savko worked as the executive director of APRAD for many years, receiving a salary from foreign pharmaceutical companies throughout this time.
Having a very great influence on Musiy, as his friend, he shaped the minister’s position in relation to the Ukrainian pharmaceutical industry and achieved that Musiy firmly believed that the Ukrainian pharmaceutical industry was simply a “bottleneck,” and all Ukrainian drugs were a mixture of imported substances with chalk or water.
Musiy did not hesitate to talk about this during his first meeting with Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturers in March 2014, when he attended a meeting of directors of major Ukrainian pharmaceutical plants at the Borshahiv Chemical and Pharmaceutical Plant.
Since joining the Ministry of Health, Oleg Musiy and his team have taken a strong stance in lobbying for the interests of foreign pharmaceutical companies in Ukraine, particularly in the area of tender procurement.
To control the tender sphere, Musiy and Savko attempted to infiltrate their people into all expert groups, under the guise of public activists.
At this stage, the well-known activists D. Sherembey and V. Zhovtyak became involved in lobbying for foreign pharmaceutical companies. They began actively raking in the tender pie for tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and hepatitis drugs, under Musiy's orders. The activists were tasked with formulating technical specifications and tender documentation in a "correct" manner, in order to favor specific foreign pharmaceutical manufacturers and exclude domestic ones. And it should be noted that they succeeded in this task.
In fact, the choice for Sherembey and Zhovtyak was perfectly timed, as they have been leading public organizations for many years that are engaged in the "sawing off" of foreign grants on the same topic.
Due to the fact that Musiy wanted to take control of tenders for tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, etc., using his pocket organizations headed by Sherembey and Zhovtyak, a tender conflict with Ruslan Salyutin arose.
When Salyutin began to resist the unprecedented activity of his boss and his assistants in pushing tenders "for themselves," Musiy and Sherembey led the public discrediting of Salyutin.
Essentially, Musiy wanted his people (Sherembey, Zhovtyak, and Savko) to draft the tender documentation accordingly, although the Ministry of Health staff, members of the tender committee, and Ruslan Salyutin himself should have been held accountable for the consequences of such actions. Naturally, the latter resisted this by all means possible, including informing the leadership of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.
Ultimately, facing resistance from both his first deputy, Salyutin, and the Cabinet of Ministers, represented by Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, Musiy simply blocked the auction. He conveniently shifted the blame for the failure to Ruslan Salyutin.
Today, Yuriy Savko continues Musiy's legacy at the Ministry of Health. As the overseer of the pharmaceutical industry and the State Expertise Center, he is actively shaping the regulatory environment to make life easier for foreign pharmaceutical companies in Ukraine (facilitating market access for imported drugs, eliminating GMP certification for them, and streamlining their quality control), while imposing new obstacles on domestic manufacturers.
All this, naturally, is covered up by “European integration”.
It seems that Musiy and Savko's dream is for the Ukrainian pharmaceutical industry to achieve a "full Europe," where not a single Ukrainian drug or Ukrainian pharmaceutical manufacturer will remain in Ukraine. This, in fact, is no different from the challenges Yuriy Savko faced as head of APRAD. And he's in a hurry, as the clock is ticking (until his dismissal), and there are still many unfulfilled orders. After all, he'll soon have to return to the executive director's chair again, and what's more, he'll have to repay debts for work paid for but not completed!
The material has been added to the section Send SKELET
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