Chaos In Greece As Pharmaceutical Supplies Drop By “90 Percent”
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Greece’s government has accused more than 50 leading pharmaceutical companies of cutting key medical supplies to the country, as hundreds of consumers queued desperately in front of pharmacies this week in order to look for prescription drugs that hospitals could no longer dispense.
According to The Guardian, more than 200 medicinal products were affected by supply cuts, while around 300 drugs are now in “very short supply” as a result of the pharmacy run.
Greece’s government has accused more than 50 leading pharmaceutical companies of cutting key medical supplies to the country, as hundreds of consumers queued desperately in front of pharmacies this week in order to look for prescription drugs that hospitals could no longer dispense.
According to The Guardian, more than 200 medicinal products were affected by supply cuts, while around 300 drugs are now in “very short supply” as a result of the pharmacy run.
Greece’s drug regulator, the National Organisation for Medicines, said that pharmaceutical companies were refusing to restock on their Greece’s supplies, as the mandated-prices of drugs in Greece were at least 20 percent below the next-cheapest country in Europe, while parallel traders were also re-exporting Greek drugs across the region.
The health ministry estimates that over 25 percent of all drugs entering Greece are being re-exported. Pharmaceutical companies say that the practice is eating into their profits in both Greece and across Europe.
The Hellenic Association of Pharmaceutical Companies however said that the situation was far more nuanced. According to its president, Frouzis Konstantinos, the key reasons were “a combination of Greece’s low medicine prices and unpaid debt by the state.”
Some companies admitted they had been withholding medical supplies. A Pfizer spokesman confirmed that four medicines had been withdrawn from the Greek market “because alternatives were available and because of the parallel trade [reselling] situation in the country”. The spokesperson however denied government allegations that supplies of around 16 medications had been halted.
“I would say supplies are down by 90 percent,” said Dimitris Karageorgiou, secretary general of the Panhellenic Pharmaceutical Association, the body representing pharmacists. [quote]”The companies are ensuring that they come in dribs and drabs to avoid prosecution. Everyone is really frightened. Customers tell me they are afraid [about] losing access to medication altogether.[/quote]
“It’s a disgrace,” Karageorgiou added. “The government is panic-stricken and the multinationals only think about themselves and the issue of parallel trade because wholesalers can legally sell them to other European nations at a higher price.”
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The National Organisation for Medicines now claims that it has investigated 13 pharmaceutical and will hand the names of eight to the Ministry of Health so they can be fined.
Konstantinos, who is also the general manager of Novartis in Greece, urged the government to reconsider its pricing system and subsidies for drugs so that Greece uses a basket of eurozone countries to calculate prices.
[quote]”The government needs to correct these wrong prices to avoid a surge of exportation,” he told The Guardian.[/quote]Instead, the government has banned exports of more than 60 drugs altogether, and says it will levy fines on pharmacies that re-export illegally.