Greek price cuts on medicines to bring prices down in Slovakia

2010-06-16

The Slovak Finance Ministry confirmed that the lower drug prices in Greece will influence the domestic prices, potentially bringing the prices of respective drugs down by 4.5% by spring 2011. The Greek government decided to reduce all domestic drug prices by 25%, a measure aimed at helping stabilise ailing public finances.
Within the reference pricing system in Slovakia, prices of domestic drugs are set based on an average of the six lowest prices in the respective countries of the European Union (EU). And although the Greek Ministry of Industry stated that these temporary price reductions should not be used for price setting purposes in other EU countries, Martin Filko, an advisor to the Slovak finance minister, told the news agency SITA that Slovak legislation or regulatory practices do not allow any exceptions based on informal communications by Greek institutions or pharmaceutical companies.
Mr. Filko also reported that further price cuts on medicine are planned in France, Germany, Ireland, Spain and Italy. The lower European prices will be factored in during a price-setting adjustment this autumn.
Three previous adjustments of reference pricing saved the Slovak insurance companies some €164m. The savings from the fourth adjustment are expected to be around €7m. Before Slovakia started using a reference pricing system, the domestic drugs were overpriced by an average of 10%.

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