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Healthcare: Study: Romania has no separate fund for innovative medicine
In Romania,even if there was important progress over the latest years, the policies regarding medical and pharma assistance tries to balance efficiently the access, the expenses and the efficiency of the costs – it is one of the conclusions of the study’ The options for the financing of medical assistance and drugs in Romania’ presented on Monday by Local American Working Group and made by Economist Intelligence Unit.
According to the study, the total expenses of the health system are hard to compare not only with those from richer European countries but to those who have a GDP equivalent per inhabitant. The study shows that Romania offers ‘apparently’ a universal system of health to his inhabitants, the covering being weak. ‘The total expenses (public and private) of Romania regarding the health system went to approximately 5.5% of GDP in 2016, according to Economist Intelligence Unit. Despite the rapid growth of the expenses over the last year, this expense is less than the average of approximately7% for the new members of EU and among the lowest in the EU member states. At a value estimated of 200 dollars in2016, the consumption of drugs per inhabitant of Romania is among the lowest in Europe ( the Western European average is approximately 450 dollars, and the average of Central and Eastern Europe is approximately 220 dollars). The total market of the pharma products of Romania estimated at 4 billion dollars in 2016, is similar to that of Hungary which has half of the population of Romania’ the study says.
According to the study, the process of inclusion on the list of reimbursement for new drugs takes a long time. The same document shows the fact that Romania has no separate fund for innovative drugs.
‘There is a programme for early access and provisions for access agreement in specific conditions which all inclusion of new drugs on the list of reimbursement on the basis of negotiated agreement regarding prices and access. Such agreements, which are made, usually on the basis of cost-volume or cost-volume-result face several obstacles. The drugs have to treat illnesses without therapeutic alternatives and the supplier has to offer very high reductions for eligible patients. At the same time, the process of implementation contributes clearly to the placement of Romania on an inferior position as regards access to drugs and especially as regards the access to innovative drugs’ the study says.