In the first nine months of the year, pure generics (non-branded) reimbursed by the NHS totaled 15.3% of category A consumption. This is what emerges from the Osmed data on the consumption of equivalents in Italy. Too little for Codacons which is asking Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio for a decree imposing sanctions on pharmacists who do not recommend them and on doctors who do not prescribe them. Saffi intervenes in defense of the doctors Ettore Giustini (in the photo), manager of the Pharmaceutical area of Simg: «In reality, the Osmed data outline a prescriptive trend that can be considered positively. The problem of a further increase in prescriptions with generics, in any case, has to deal with the unresolved issue of substitutability in the pharmacy: as long as patients continue to receive different packs of the same drug from month to month, the doctor will always struggle to prescribe an off patent". Even for Fimmg, Codacons' intervention is out of line: «The association can ask whatever it wants» says the union's national secretary, Giacomo Milillo «in any case, they are not the ones who decide on the drug policies to pursue. The generic must certainly be supported but then one wonders what effectiveness a provision like the one invoked can have, I don't think that this helps equivalents».
DoctorNews – December 16, 2010
