5.01.2012

Spain - yet another Royal Decree to cut costs

Dear Readers,

the financial situation in Spain gets worse by the day and the household deficit has led the government in Madrid again to issue a new package of measures to achieve additional savings in the health care sector. The new Real Decree RDL 16/2012 that was published on April 24th once again, although this time patients are directly affected as well with co payments etc, will heavily impact the pharmaceutical sector. Among the changes are modifications to the reference pricing system (selective financing via maximum prices, consideration of generics and biosimilar price levels in class etc) as well as to the price setting process in general. The Spanish organization of pharmaceutical manufacturers called the significance of the decree "without precedence" and an attack against innovation.

There will also be an advisory committee of responsible for pharmacoeconomic considerations as part of the price setting process. It looks like Spain is getting more serious now on cost-effectiveness and budget impact evaluations on national level.

I haven't fully digested the heavy pamphlet myself yet but will be reporting here on the developments.

Cheers
Ulf

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spain is working hard to cut costs, and the increase in generics will be important. Moreover, until there is actual uniformity across the Autonomous Regions, it remains a complicated landscape!

ustaginnus@hotmail.com said...

I agree with you that certain elements are important of course, generics free up resources for new, innovative medicines. What is the issue is that the process for nerw medicines is not clear and very intransparent and slow. Uniformity will probably never be achieved, however clarity on assessment criteria and process can and should be achieved.

Industry Research Reports said...

The pharmaceutical industry is under mounting scrutiny because of rapidly increasing expenditures for drugs worldwide.Drug expenditures are now the fastest-growing component of health care costs, increasing at the rate of about 15 percent per year.Above report provides important information related to china healthcare industry and it's current situation..Thnx for sharing this useful information