Professor says ministry knew of agreement between pharmaceutical industry and pharmacies months ago

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Riitta Ahonen, Professor of Pharmaceutics at the University of Kuopio, says that the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health would have been able to do something about rising costs of medications for nearly ten years, but lacked the political courage.
      In her view, the issue of rising drug prices is being drummed up all over the place, even though the phenomenon could not have come as a surprise, as the matter had already been discussed in the report of a working group on pharmaceutical costs in 1997.
      "We wrote four pages of proposals on how to cut costs, and noted that we need a long-term programme, rather than individual reforms", Ahonen said.
     
The ministry is preparing a proposal for legislative change aimed at affecting costs by various means. Many of them were on the working group's list already in 1997, and after that in several working groups.
      Markku Lehto, Chief of Staff at the Ministry for Social Affairs and Health, says that some proposals have already been implemented; he says that the measures have been steps in the right direction, but apparently inadequate.
      The system of generic substitution of name brand drugs was aimed at bringing prices down. Pharmacies are required to inform patients of the possibility to substitute a generic equivalent for costly name brands.
      In March Helsingin Sanomat revealed that pharmacies had made agreements with the pharmaceutical industry, under which customers were not always offered the cheapest alternative. In return, the manufacturers offered the pharmacies generous wholesale discounts.
     
In response to the news, the National Agency for Medicines demanded that the pharmaceutical industry and pharmacies submit reports on the alleged agreement. The deadline for the explanations was last Friday, and most pharmacies had failed to submit reports.
      In her own studies, Professor Ahonen asked pharmacies on what basis they chose the drugs to be offered for generic substitution. She found that 38% of pharmacists said that they recommend the products that had been agreed in discussions with the pharmaceutical manufacturers.
      She submitted this information to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health already in September.
      When Ahonen's findings were made public, some pharmacies refused to cooperate further with her researchers.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Mönkäre denounces price agreements between pharmacies and drug companies (8.3.2005)
  Planned legislation would reduce available generic drugs (6.8.2004)
  Generic drugs bring savings of EUR 55.1 million (5.1.2004)
  Article in medical journal criticises "unethical" marketing of medicines (1.4.2005)

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