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Тhe new price list of medicines which came into force on September 6 contains reductions of up to 67%. The prices of total 6 830 pharmaceutical products are changed and the prices of 3 373 medicines are reduced.
 
The new system for determining the prices of medicines used the three countries with the cheapest medicines among the 22 states of the European Union. The prices of 6830 pharmaceutical products are updated that are 97% of all medicines available on the Greek market. The prices of 3 373 medicines are reduced; the prices of 2 658 medicines are increased to 10%, while the prices of 799 medicines remain unchanged.  

The new price list is available on the website of the Chief Trade Secretariat (www.gge.gr).  For technical reasons 3% of the medicines are not listed. It is expected that their prices will be announced till the end of September.

The prices of 95% of the 300 best-selling medicines on the Greek market fell more than 20% on average, reported Ta Nea newspaper. The advantage of the new system is that the total cost savings for the health insurance funds will reach about 1.2 billion per year. They said from the Ministry of Economy that in this way the government fulfills the promises for medicines’ reform, reported Naftemboriki Journal in a publication containing the top ten questions related to the new prices list of medicines answered by the Ministry.

The other big news is related to the price ceiling of medicines through a provision of early September. It covers both increases and decreases. By imposing a price ceiling the government seeks to prevent future price spikes, but also to stop the practice of many companies to replace the cheap and quality medicines with more expensive ones which is detrimental to health funds and consumers. The new provision targets the future prescription of medicines that imitate the expensive pharmaceutical products but are much cheaper. It is expected the Greek pharmaceutical industry to be supported in this way as most of the medicines are produced by the Greek pharmaceutical companies.  

Sources from 22 EU countries where official data on prices is published were used to determine the new prices of the pharmaceutical products. Among the countries used as examples are cheaper ones like Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia and others. The new procedures and methods used to determine the end prices of medicines on the Greek market are very different than those applied so far, say the answers of the Ministry of Economy. They state from the Ministry that as reference prices were used the prices in four or five EU countries, which were usually among the most expensive ones! When determining the prices and comparing the medicines in different countries were taken into account the ingredients of the medicines and for what diseases they are prescribed.