Following the results of a roundtable held in the State Duma in February 2026, which focused on drug provision for patients with rheumatic diseases, experts formulated proposals and sent them to the government, the State Duma, and the Ministry of Health.
The key request is to explore the creation of a separate federal project to provide patients with expensive and highly effective genetically engineered biological drugs, as well as selective immunosuppressants, under such a project. It is proposed to launch it within the framework of the national project “Long and Active Life”.
The experts also asked representatives of the State Duma to consider introducing a mechanism for drug provision for patients with chronic progressive diseases, including rheumatic diseases, under a unified state program — regardless of disability status or place of residence. They also proposed to work on amendments to the federal law on state social assistance regarding the regulation of the distribution of subventions, taking into account the actual needs of regions and morbidity rates. The authors of the proposals believe that these measures will help eliminate uneven funding between the Russian regions.
In addition, they asked the government to consider including rheumatic diseases under ICD-10 codes M05–M08 (inflammatory polyarthropathies), M32 (systemic lupus erythematosus), M34 (systemic sclerosis), M35 (other systemic connective tissue disorders), M45–M49 (spondylopathies) in the federal registry. Currently, patients with such diseases are not included in it.
The experts also asked the government to consider increasing funding under the compulsory health insurance system for the treatment of patients with rheumatic diseases and to explore moving the deadline for submitting the draft List of Vital and Essential Drugs to the government from October 15 to July 15. According to them, this would resolve the problem of the timing mismatch between the commission’s decision to include a drug in the List of Vital and Essential Drugs and its availability in the clinical and statistical groups system. They specified that currently the time gap is effectively one year.
Among the proposals for the Ministry of Health are to make the rate of early disability among patients with rheumatic diseases one of the indicators of the effectiveness of the rheumatology service, develop measures to address the staffing shortage in the rheumatology service, and introduce programs on the diagnosis of rheumatic diseases for primary care physicians.
Additionally, the experts ask the Ministry of Health to present for public discussion a draft roadmap for the development of the rheumatology service and the collection of patient statistics, to work together with the Federal Compulsory Health Insurance Fund on a mechanism for introducing genetically engineered biological drugs and selective immunosuppressants for patients receiving these drugs under preferential drug provision programs, and together with the Federal Compulsory Health Insurance Fund to address the issue of defining the concept of “initiation” in the use of genetically engineered biological drugs and selective immunosuppressants within the application of high-tech medical care tariffs and clinical and statistical groups to enable drug substitution. Also, to expedite work on adopting updated clinical guidelines and standards of medical care.
In July 2025, a special commission of the “United Russia” party called for including dyslipidemia, which leads to elevated cholesterol levels, in the federal project “Combating Cardiovascular Diseases”.
