Why Drug Prices Have Increased by 1% to 400%

Residents of Greece insured in the state health insurance system you'll have to fork out even more after adjusting prices by more than 900 medicinal productsconducted by the Ministry of Health from Monday, August 26.

According to Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis, the move was deemed necessary because many medicines are priced lower than in other European countries, leading to chronic shortages or even withdrawals from sale. The price adjustments are strictly applied to unique, essential medicines that are in long-term shortages and are imported through the IFT, often at much higher prices.

They were in danger of disappearing from the market.

According to market participants, the new prices are in fact a correction of significant imbalances in previous price lists for drugs, because their prices were below the average of the three lowest prices in the Eurozone or remained at the level of the old, extremely low prices, and they were threatened with “disappearance” from the market or reappearance under a different name or in much more expensive packaging. However, everyone acknowledges that this step will place a burden on the insured person, but it will allow old, proven and still cheap drugs to remain on the market, so that they are not replaced by new, more expensive ones.

Pharmacists' demands and tariff increases

As a reminder, the requests submitted to EMEA by pharmaceutical companies and drug manufacturers concerned 1,242 codes of original and generic drugs, the prices of which were extremely low. 923 of them were subject to price increases, most of which were between 1 and 400%, for example:

• The blood and nutrition medicine, which reaches the consumer at a price of 1.42 euros, will rise in price to 1.65 euros.
• Lasix – from 1.35 euros to 1.89 euros, T3 – from 1.59 euros to 4.79 euros, Μilithin – from 2.85 euros to 5.22 euros.
• The oncology drug Etoposide, the shortage of which has been actively discussed on the market recently, has risen in price from 8.11 euros to 22.88 euros.

According to the minister, pharmaceutical companies have already increased production in connection with the new prices, and transnational corporations, having withdrawn drugs such as etoposide from sale, are returning them to pharmacies.

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