Grubiša Illegally Set Price for Bosnia's Drug Register for Years, Her Successor Abolished the Practice

The Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices of Bosnia and Herzegovina has issued the seventh Register of Medicines of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and from this year, i.e., since the arrival of the new director Aleksandar Zolak, who succeeded Nataša Grubiša, the long-time director of the Agency, this Register is completely free of charge, writes the news agency Patria.

However, during Grubiša's term from 2010 to 2016, this Register was sold (!?) even though its printing was paid for with budget funds. It is particularly unclear on what basis the Agency set the price of the Register, which was then resold by pharmaceutical companies, medical chambers, and doctors' associations in the Federation, the RS, and at the state level of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Although completely illegal, Grubiša and her associates set a price of 50 KM for the Register, which was sold until 2014, and in 2015 the price was 60 KM plus VAT. As our source reveals, the annual revenue from the sale of this Register amounted to up to 100,000 KM. It is not yet known whether fiscal receipts were issued for the sale of the publication.

As confirmed to us by the Agency, the professional publication of the Register of Medicines of Bosnia and Herzegovina for 2016 has now been distributed free of charge in its entire print run to the professional public in Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e., to societies of pharmacists and doctors of medicine, as well as to chambers of doctors of medicine and pharmacists in both entities.

- The Agency has no legal basis to set the price of the said publication – says Biljana Tubić from the Agency for Medicines.

However, when pressed to clarify how the price was determined in previous years and how it was possible that it was sold, Tubić says:

- Director Zolak has no answer to that question – added Tubić.

As we unofficially learn, Director Zolak was shocked by the fact that the Agency had set a price for the Register, because it has absolutely no authority to do so.

Incidentally, Grubiša will also be remembered for removing the state coat of arms from the official website of the Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and only after Patria's reporting did she restore it to the website.

She was also the central figure in a scandal during the major floods in Bosnia and Herzegovina when she posted an appeal for help for the affected areas of the RS on the Agency's website, later justifying it by saying that in those alarming moments they were posting what others had asked them to.

But how she will explain the illegal setting of prices for the Register of Medicines of Bosnia and Herzegovina remains unclear for now, because her successor Zolak clearly stated that the Agency has no legal basis to set the price of the Register.

The prosecutor's offices will also have work to do in this entire process.