Silviu Chiru, the general director of Balkan Pharmaceuticals, is accusing MP Gheorghe Brega, the head of the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission on the Pharmaceutical Market, of being behind a host of “abusive” inspections at the company with the intention of driving it out of business. Chiru guesses that the root problem is his company's pricing policy. He told a press conference on Friday that the persecution started a few years ago when the company, which is also a manufacturer, began bidding on pharmaceutical contracts and offering the lowest bids. This led to a drop in prices of some drugs on the market, even down to 50%. Chiru said that doing business since has become virtually impossible due to increasingly frequent inspections from state agencies. According to Silviu Chiru, MP Gheorghe Brega has orchestrated these inspections to protect the interests of importers, which obviously felt threatened by domestic manufacturers. Silviu Chiru claims Brega wants to eliminate his company at any cost. “This is an abuse of authority on his part. We are the only company to get such a discriminatory treatment from the Inquiry Commission. I've asked many other pharmaceutical companies with which we do business and learned that no one received a single phone call or a visit from the Commission, not even the importers, despite the fact that 80% of the drugs in Moldova are imported”. Chiru said he will take legal action to claim damages that were incurred as a result of the orchestrated inspections, which revealed no faults of pharmaceutical nature. Balkan Phamaceuticals was established in Moldova in 2007 and since 2009 has participated in auctions to become a supplier for a number of private and public health care institutions.