"66 million euro savings" out of the price of drugs

Presently, the authorities are trying to regulate medicines consumption whose price has been carried out by the government after having observing a constant costs increase in the last few years.

The new price calculation system for the medicines on the C2 list which includes, by means of national programs, over 1,400 medicines required for treating some chronic diseases will help government to save over 66 million euros, a sum of money that will be used in order to keep on supporting the aforementioned programs.

While attending the debate, Cristian Irimie, Secretary of State, explained that the measures taken by the authorities based on the patient and the warranty of greater access to medication:

"The expenses allotted to medicines have increased year by year even though the number of patient did not change too much. As a consequence, the Ministry of Health had to choose and we chose. It is about the choice between affecting the revenue of some companies on the one side and the patients, on the other side. We chose patients", he declared.

The new calculation system foresees not only a 15% clearing prices decrease for producers but also the clearing margins for both suppliers and chemists.

The vice-president of the Chemistry College in Romania, Clara Popescu, explained that the trade margin will decrease from sixteen per cent to an average of ten per cent for chemists’ shop taking into account the fact the lowest average value in Europe is about twenty two per cent.

The executive manager of the Romanian Association of International Producers, Cristian Luţan, drew the attention on the fact that the measures adopted by the authorities would affect the entire chain of distribution which will determine the development of the parallel export effect and the supplying for many traders:

"It is true that national programs reveal that costs increased and we believe that there needs to be done a better control and a more accurate distribution of resources. Despite this, we strongly assert that the measure that has been debated today will have negative effects, even though it fulfills the budgetary target that the Ministry proposed. The main fallout that this measure will have is the unlimited development of parallel exports that leave Romanian patient without medicines", Cristian Luţan asserted.

General medicine producers think that the measures taken by the authorities will have long term fallouts and many general medicines will become unsustainable which means that they will die out from the market.

Authorities propose the bringing in of a general replacement with a low price against the new one through a mechanism by means of which it will be reported the clearing for a general product and the disposal of those that cannot be sold, I mean the "ghost-products".

The Secretary of State, Cristian Irimie, promised that he would take into account the proposals of those who attended the debate but he did not stated clearly the time when the new calculation system for medicines on the C2 list would be brought into force.

Translated by: Cristina Anamaria Maricescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University