Mandatory drug labeling in Kazakhstan, in effect since July 2024, has uncovered systemic violations in pharmacy circulation — from the sale of expired medicines to the distribution of drugs intended for free issuance. Vice Minister of Trade and Integration Aset Nusupov announced this at a briefing at the Central Communications Service, according to infohub.kz.
According to the vice minister, about 1.2 billion drug packages have been labeled to date, of which more than 600 million have already been withdrawn from circulation, meaning they have been sold.
The Naqty Onim system, as Aset Nusupov noted, also records violations. "The Naqty Onim system detects expired medicines. For example, more than 1,000 market participants have been found to have 7,500 cases of selling expired drugs. In addition, over 470,000 cases of re-sale of packages with applied labeling codes have been identified," the vice minister said.
He separately addressed medicines intended for free distribution to patients. Since July 1, 2024, the system has identified more than 26,000 packages of such drugs bearing the corresponding "Teгiн" stamp, which were actually sold for money according to receipts.
Based on the inspections, as the speaker summarized, 31 organizations were fined a total of 12.3 million tenge, and 43 pharmacies were issued orders to eliminate the identified violations.