Different prices depending on the country: there are those who take advantage of it even if nobody admits it. And the patients just have to wait
Of MICHELE BOCCI – Repubblica.it – 13/05/2015
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They are meant to lower blood pressure or cholesterol, to cure infections or to relieve pain, but they are nowhere to be found. Every day in Italy there are pharmacists who spread their arms in front of customers and say no, that medicine isn't really available, the distributors don't have it. It is not clear how many products "disappear" in our country, estimates speak of at least 300 in a year. The problem does not occur simultaneously in all regions but only in some, even in individual provinces: a molecule may be available in Bologna but not in Romagna. Lazio at the end of 2014 made a list of 52 medicines impossible to buy. These shortcomings are not due to production problems by the industry. The phenomenon is caused by parallel exports, or "parallel trade", a legal but dangerous practice for health systems.
When a drug is approved by the EMA, the European regulatory agency, each country negotiates the cost with the industry. The first consequence is that the molecules arrive on the market at different times, the second is that prices change from one country to another. In the south of the continent, lower rates are usually snatched. This cost difference pushes Italian distributors to move the drugs to where they are paid more, for example to Germany, obtaining a profit of 20-30%. Not only. The mechanism causes industry to supply quotas. Manufacturers don't like parallel trade because they want the prices of the various markets to be respected. When there is a product at risk of export to be delivered, they are based on the consumption of the previous year. If the request grows, the medicine cannot be found. Aifa speaks of "distortions of distribution dynamics". With the Ministry of Health, it carries out checks on pharmacists and wholesalers. But it is not easy to counter a phenomenon based on a European standard.
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