Of Antonio Marfella | 16 July 2014 | The Fact Economy & Lobby
The very serious situation of shortage of drugs in Italy, at the same time as the exceptional increase in the costs of innovative molecules, especially in Oncology, is an apparently complicated and paradoxical situation, if one does not want to see how the world economy today is based on the pharmaceutical market, the leading economic sector, especially illegal. A solution must be found and quickly, with the hope that viable proposals will come out as soon as possible from a job that involves the entire supply chain (territory, hospitals, Irccs).
Together with the institutions, it is necessary to find a right path, also on the regulatory front, which allows for having the right amount of medicines for the national requirement. There is a law that allows parallel exports, which is difficult to cancel due to the basic principles of the European Union on the free movement of goods and people, but which does not reconcile very well with the public service requirements which require pharmacies to supply medicines to those who ask for them. Surely a starting point could be the "tracing" of drugs, which already exists but whose data is not available in all parts of the supply chain. This would allow us to understand where the drugs come from. But it is not enough to intervene on the consequences, we must act on the causes.
The most realistic estimates for the current year (2014) predict a further increase in drug expenditure in the Oncology Units of between 10 and 20%. The situation is varied, both between Regions and between Companies in the same Regions. Can we balance our ethical duties as professionals towards the patient we are dealing with with the responsibilities that society entrusts to us as managers of the Health Service? As doctors employed by the NHS it is our priority duty to take care of our Health Service, and its economic/financial balance, without which any reasoning about the individual patient would vanish.
