Health: Generic medicine producers request different clawback tax

The Association of Generic Medicine Manufacturers sent an open letter on Wednesday to the leaders of the ruling coalition, Liviu Dragnea and Calin Popescu Tariceanu, requesting the application of a different clawback tax to prevent the disappearance of cheap treatments from pharmacies.

“The situation is really desperate. Thousands of cheap medicines disappeared from the market or are very hard to find,” the letter shows.

According to source quoted, “there are thousands of low price medicines” which have been missing from pharmacies and about two thirds of them cost less than 25 lei, being used by over 8.5 million patients and are mostly made in Romania.

“Why do medicines disappear? Because the clawback tax, with which manufacturers contribute to finance medicine consumption is uniformly applied to both medicines worth thousands of euro and to generic, cheap ones. The burden of the tax make sale price cheaper than manufacture costs. This tax has higher impact on cheap medicines than on expensive ones”, the signatories of the letter explain.

According to the Association, the solution could be the introduction, by emergency order, of  different calculations for medicines according to the generic reference price, at the same time with consumption control by introducing new, innovative medicines, expensive only for compensation by individual contracts with each producer.

“Such a solution would have no impact on the budget, but would ensure an equitable distribution of fiscal burden”, the association says.

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