The National Market and Competition Commission (CNMC) has issued an opinion in which it urges the autonomous community of Andalusia to cease its policies that favor generic medicines over branded medicines. Two months ago, the region published an addendum urging pharmacies to dispense a copy drug over the original if the doctor’s prescription was made by active ingredient and the price of the treatment was the same. Now, Competition asks to annul this provision since it “violates the principle of non-discrimination.”
Andalusia has become famous on several occasions in terms of pharmaceutical policy. If a little more than a decade ago it promoted the well-known Drug Auctions, which ended up disappearing with the change of political sign in the community, now the new government wanted to do something similar and planned to favor generic medicines over branded medicines. It should be remembered that state law requires that the drug at the lowest price be dispensed for reasons of budgetary interest, but in no case does it determine whether the therapy should be original or a copy.
“The Addendum to the Convention, within the framework of promoting the dispensing of generic medicines, establishes conditions that only apply to generic medicines, so that economic operators consisting of laboratories supplying “branded” medicines are subject to exclusion of these conditions and unequal treatment in favor of generic medicines that are limited to the scope of the Autonomous Community of Andalusia. What is questionable is not the agreed reductions, but rather that these are limited to a certain type of medicine (the one that is being promoted), to the exclusion of another,” argues the CNMC.
Competition makes this request to the Andalusian government as a price step towards more far-reaching actions and warns the autonomous community that if it does not correct there will be proceedings before the National Court. The Farmaindustria employer’s association also appealed to court regarding the regional measure.
On the other hand, it is worth remembering that The Health Department of the autonomous community takes a percentage of sales for generic drugs to compensate for what has stopped coming in after the end of the auctions. According to the addendum to the agreement, they receive 5% of the turnover achieved with that dispensation.
