Galery

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Victoria Mindova

The Ministry of Economy, Competition and Shipping announced that a new commission for control of medicines prices will be created, because there is a problem with pricing of medicines in Greece. It is a fact that medicines in Greece are three times more expensive than in the other countries in the Euro zone. The new commission will have to counteract the announced prices by the pharmaceutical companies. The government is planning to introduce e new legal framework, in which the commission will set the price limits, so that Greek citizens will be able to buy their medicines on prices closer or the same as the ones in the other European countries. The commission will serve two main purposes – it will inform consumers about product prices and services and it will supervise the price ranges and if there is something alarming it will inform the respective authorities about the violation.

Representatives of the ministry said that a common information system for price control is developed, which cost €1.8 million. Data from 25 big cities and 1182 outlets was collected, in order to organize a common pricelist. Big outlets and supplier associations will be forced to introduce the new system and they will also be subject to regular state inspection. This will ensure the data reliability and effective state control.

On Friday, November 6 ministers from three key ministries – Health, Labor and Social security – will meet, in order to discuss the adoption of the new medicines lists, which are subject to state subsidization. Based on preliminary data, with the introduction of the new lists the state will gain additional €800 million for one year. This means that many medicines, which were free until now, will become paid and many medicines, which were subsidized by the state until now, will be paid full price by the patients.