THE MINISTRY of Health has assured patients that if branded medicines go up in price, they won’t have to foot the bill.
The announcement was made following a decision by the National Association of Pharmacies to reduce the price of generic non-brand medicines by 30 per cent from September this year.
However, the decision to subsidise generic medicines could make branded medicines more expensive to buy if the government cuts subsidies for these drugs to encourage doctors, hospitals and patients to buy the cheaper generic versions.
Last week, the Portuguese Association for Generic Medicines (APOGEN) warned that lowering the price of generic medicines could cause “a general increase to patients in the cost of medicines”.
“With cheaper generic medicines, the state, to cut the cost of its drugs bill, will correspondingly reduce the scale of its partnerships with brand pharmaceutical companies which control 80 per cent of the market. This, in turn, pushes up the prices in real terms for these drugs as subsidies are reduced,” said a spokesman for APOGEN.
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