Greece to cut 4,000 drug prices by a fifth
pharmafile | September 8, 2010 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Greece, economic climate, price cuts, pricing & Reimbursement
The Greek government has released a list of over 4,000 drugs on which it will impose heavy price cuts.
This is the first stage of the re-pricing of around 12,000 drugs in Greece, and will see an average price reduction of 20 per cent.
The report comes from the Greek newspaper Ta Nea which says that the new ‘Greek price bulletin’ will be “very drastic” in its scope as it comes into place this week.
Reports from analysts at IHS Global state that AstraZeneca’s prostate cancer drug Casodex will be the biggest victim, seeing its price reduced by nearly 60% from €326.58 ($419.29) to €131.69.
Sanofi-Aventis’s blockbuster anticoagulant Lovenox will also be hit hard with its price cut by 28%, from €124.31 to €89.81.
Others noted by Ta Nea includes a near 35% reduction for J&J/Janssen-Cilag’s plaque psoriasis drug Stelara and a 38% slash in the price of Roche’s Mircera for anaemia associated with chronic kidney disease.
Among these 4,000 drugs included in the list are reported to be 1,350 generics that will be priced at a maximum of 72% of the price of the original patented drug.
According to Ta Nea, the Greek finance minister has imposed further limitations so that any increase to the wholesale price of any medicine cannot exceed 10%, and no reduction can exceed 40 per cent.
The Greek government will also implement an electronic prescription system, which will enable the authorities to check on the prescribing of doctors, and enforce a stricter policy of prescribing cheaper (i.e. generic) products.
The austerity measures seem to be working for the Greek state, with latest figures showing that pharma expenditure in its social security funds fell significantly in July, with a 28% year-on-year reduction for the IKA fund (the main social security organisation), a 23% cut for the OGA (farmers’ health insurance) and a 17% lowering for the OAEE (mandatory insurance for the self-employed).
The country has now implemented an international reference-pricing (IRP) system, which references the average price of drugs in the three lowest-priced markets of the EU.
IHS Global believe this will “most certainly have an effect on the prices of drugs” in countries that use Greece as a reference country in their IRP system.
IHS also said that most pharmaceutical producers agree that this pricing system is much better than the “blanket price-reductions” introduced several months ago.
In a statement the analysts said: “In Greece’s current dire economic situation, the authorities were left with little option other than to implement such drastic measures.”
Ben Adams
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