2023-08-31 11:11:00
02:11 PM Thursday, August 31, 2023
Books – Ahmed Gomaa:
The Egyptian Center for the Right to Medicine denounced the continuous increases in drug prices, describing it as “exaggerated pricing.”
During the past few days, the Egyptian Medicines Authority has approved new increases in the prices of a number of pharmaceutical items in varying proportions, which extended to some of the “best-selling” medicines in local pharmacies, at a time when specialists attributed this to the companies’ request to raise prices to face the steady increase in production costs.
The Egyptian Center for the Right to Medicine said, in a statement today, Thursday, that “civil society had hoped for years for the emergence of a drug-specific authority in Egypt, in order to regulate and stabilize industry matters, but following 3 years it seems that the matter is disappointing and harms the rights of citizens to provide medicine.” as a human right.”
He added, “Since January 2023, the center has witnessed, through monthly monitoring of drug prices, the existence of successive increases in drug prices, which has led to additional burdens on the patient.”
According to the center, an increase of regarding 2278 items was found, with rates starting from 35% and up to 100% for local medicines, while the increase for fully manufactured medicines abroad reached more than 250%, especially the most important items.
The Egyptian Medicines Authority did not officially comment on the reasons and details of this increase, nor did it announce a monitoring of the number of items that witnessed an increase in prices during the past weeks.
The statement of the Egyptian Center for the Right to Medicine touched on the issue of increasing some items more than 3 times in the period from July 2022 to July 2023, considering that this resulted in “a price distortion of a compulsorily priced commodity according to the law, and the resulting severe disputes between citizens and pharmacy workers.” There are also suspicions regarding manipulation, which has caused significant inflation in the economies of 80,000 pharmacies.
The center said that it sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Dr. Mustafa Madbouly; Because the Drug Authority falls under his direct responsibility, as he addressed the committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and a number of them asked questions that did not find a response from the officials until now.
The center explained that the impact of the economic conditions of an industry most of whose components are imported from abroad and closely linked to exchange rates should not be borne by the consumer alone, and therefore solutions must be provided given that this pricing is offset by a shortage of medicinal items, whether original or similar and alternative.
According to sources in the drug sector, who spoke to Masrawy, local and foreign drug companies are submitting requests to review the prices of some of their items, in the midst of the crisis of high prices for production inputs, including supplies and raw materials, while the “Pricing” Committee of the Drug Authority holds periodic meetings to consider these requests, and determine the percentage Excess for specific items.
for more details:
“Rani, Aspocid, and Virecta”… new hikes in drug prices for popular brands
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