On December 7^th a meeting was held at the Ministry of Health, chaired by

Minister of Health, Deputy Minister T. Gabunia and Head of the Drug Agency Z. Kapanadze.

Our association and associations of distributors and local manufacturers were invited from the private sector.

Meeting topic: Going to GMP and GDP standards.

The leadership of the Ministry has introduced some changes in the procedures for the transition to standards.

Most importantly, companies that have certificates of production or wholesale trade in January-May (different years) will have the opportunity to switch to the standards by June 30, 2022 (i.e. the transition deadline has been extended for these companies). As well as manufacturers who will not have GMP certificate, will be able to produce products only for export (not for the Georgian market) until 2025.

On June 16th, the Association of Pharmaceutical Companies Representatives in Georgia, participated in an online seminar organized by IFPMA, where IFPMA members were introduced to the new Regulatory Reliance Toolkit.
At this workshop, Policy Wisdom (IFPMA Partners) presented an overview of this toolkit designed specifically to regulate national-level capabilities. An extensive presentation was presented, which included the following issues:

Toolkit overview;

Introduction to Regulatory reliance

Regulatory reliance: concepts and application

Strategic approach to engagement

Monitoring the path to regulatory reliance

On May 11th, the information portal bm.ge published a comment by Mr. Irakli Margvelashvili regarding the need of pharmaceutical quality control lab. This article can be found at the link.

On May 5th, Irakli Margvelashvili, the Executive Director of APCRG, commented on the prices of medicines in Georgia in a live broadcast on Formula TV, in the tv show "Business with Bloomberg.

Abovementioned interview can be found at the link.

On April 20th, General Meeting of APCRG members have elected members of APCRG Board. Following persons have been elected as Board members:
M. Khetsuriani (Servier), M.Asatiani (Roche), M.Maisuradze (Astra Zeneca), G.Pirtskhalaishvili, K. Ugrekhelidze (Acino Pharma).

On the position of Board Chairman has been elected Mr. Grigori Pirtskhalaishvili.

Association of Pharmaceutical Companies Representatives in Georgia, like in previous years, funded a 3-day free dinner at the House of Charity - "Catharsis" for Easter, during which more than 1,000 people will receive a free dinner.

On April 11th, Executive Director of the Associaiton, Mr. Irakli Margvelashvili made a brief overview of Georgian pharmaceutical market trends within pandemic situation on information portal bm.ge.

The mentioned interview can be found at the link.

On March 23rd, Executive Director of the Association, Mr. Irakli Margvelashvili, participated in a virtual (online) meeting of IFPMA (International Federation of Manufacturers and Associations) member associations.

At the meeting, IFPMA Director-General Thomas Quinn presented the largest work done by IFPMA during the Covid-19 pandemic, including vaccination against Covid.

Various current issues of IFPMA activity were discussed, including the Global Code of Ethics. Representatives of the US, Japanese and Spanish associations presented the results of their activities during the pandemic.

Representatives of associations from 40 countries took part in the meeting.

Eurasian Virtual Pharmaceutical Summit was held on October 14^th-21^st, 2020. It was the first virtual event in the Russian speaking markets and included high-quality content as well as entertaining formats. 100+ speakers, 200+ participants, 8 days of content and networking. Summit participants discussed regulatory issues and trends in the market development in EAEU, Central Asian, Caucasus and Eastern European countries. Mr. Irakli Margvelashvili, Mr. Grigori Pirkhtsalaishvili, Ms. Maka Asatiani and Mr. Levan Varduashvili participated in the summit from our association. APCRG was also an information partner of the summit.

At the following link, you can read the interview of Mr. Irakli Margvelashvili with www.commersant.ge, with the title - "International companies close their offices in Georgia due to unethical actions of pharmaceutical companies."