Situation in Hungarian pharmaceutical industry criticised by main players

2010-02-23

Ivan Rozsa, the communications director at Sanofi-aventis/Chinoin, has warned that the condition of the Hungarian pharmaceutical industry is becoming increasingly difficult because of the new regulations accepted by the government last year, which may force drug manufacturers to cut their costs. Representatives of other manufacturers also criticised the accepted amendments. Laszlo Marosffy, the CEO of Gedeon Richter, stated that the new regulations are forcing drug manufacturers to recalculate their prices in accordance with price levels which were not adjusted to the domestic market, which he considers to be unfair.
As we have reported in Central Europe Pharma News on a number of occasions, under the new drug pricing regulation plan, the international price benchmark for reimbursed drugs in Hungary has been reduced from 40% to 30%. In accordance with this proposal, the prices of those medicines which bear the highest reimbursement costs will be compared with the average prices in the three EU countries with the lowest prices. Drug producers have to adjust their prices to, at most, 130% of this international price level to stop their products being excluded from the reimbursement lists. Furthermore, the government has restored the headcount tax, thus increasing the operating costs of the companies.