Premium
The Employers' Union of Industrial Medicines Producers in Romania (PRIMER) pointed out on Thursday that no health minister "crossed the doors" of privately owned medicine factories in the country, stating that they can produce any patent treatment in any form of presentation or concentration.
PRIMER Executive Director Dragos Damian was quoted as saying in a press release issued by the organization, saying that the methodology for calculating the price of medicines must be changed "urgently" because dozens of cheap treatments are in danger of being removed from production.
"Professor Alexandru Rafila is the first health minister who speaks publicly about the strategic role of the approximately 30 medicine factories in Romania. Probably, if it had not been for the pandemic and the war, the medical authorities wouldn't have considered this economic field even now. (...) No health minister has entered privately owned medicine factories in the country," Damian said, according to the PRIMER release.
He argued that factories in the country could produce any medicine under the patent, in any form of presentation or concentration, if required, Agerpres.ro informs.
"The factories in the country are inspected by the most prestigious authorities in the world and it is written 'Made in Romania' on medicines that reach patients from 90 countries. The country's factories employ 5,000 top specialists and the work equipment is state-of-the-art technology and digitization. The pharmaceutical industry in Romania is helping to create more than 60,000 horizontal and vertical jobs," said Damian.
According to him, the Ministry of Health must "urgently" change the methodology for calculating drug prices.
He said that these are the real measures that must be taken immediately so that patients have better access to medicines manufactured in Romania, and the health system to achieve savings.
"PRIMER has been calling for the introduction of the above measures for many years, so that Romania has a pharmaceutical industry of the same size as those in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic or Slovenia, to give examples only from the east of the European Union," Dragos Damian recalled.
Minister Alexandru Rafila stated on Thursday that the country's 20 medicine factories bring in 1.5% of the Gross Domestic Product and that the operation of this industry must be ensured, and the pricing policy should be "slightly revised" because the situation is "paradoxical" given that trying to save money ends up in spending more.
