ROMA – Anche le ultime bobine arrivate dallo stabilimento di Foggia sono difettose. La carta adesiva a triplo strato si scolla, e sarà impossibile utilizzarla per stampare i bollini che si applicano sulle scatole dei medicinali prima della loro immissione sul mercato. L’Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato, titolato per legge alla produzione, ha già accumulato un ritardo enorme: settanta milioni di contrassegni, equivalenti ad altrettante scatole di farmaci che languono negli stabilimenti dei produttori. E la situazione, considerato pure l’incidente della carta, non sembra destinata a migliorare rapidamente.
Medicines at risk
La Farmindustria è molto preoccupata. «I produttori continuano a segnalarci problemi, anche seri, sulla fornitura dei bollini. Se va avanti così, prima o poi i pazienti avranno difficoltà a trovare i medicinali in farmacia» dice il presidente, Massimo Scaccabarozzi. «Il Poligrafico – aggiunge – si è impegnato a recuperare al più presto, in questi primi giorni di aprile, almeno sulle urgenze». In pratica, si stanno selezionando i medicinali da inviare prima sul mercato. «Diamo la precedenza ai farmaci salvavita, ma tutti i giorni servono anche gli antibiotici, gli anticoagulanti, le insuline… È una situazione incresciosa, speriamo che il Poligrafico la risolva nel più breve tempo possibile» dice Scaccabarozzi.
External procurement
La defective card is a serious problem, but the real problem is another. Normally Poligrafico, which to all intents and purposes has remained the only manufacturing company wholly controlled by the State, produces only a part of the 2.3 billion pharmaceutical stamps that are printed every year. About a quarter. The rest of the production is contracted out to external 'fiduciary' printers through a tender. The market, considering the extreme sophistication of the printing machines, which in practice are all prototypes, is very limited. But competitive. A roll of a thousand stamps is sold by Poligrafico to pharmaceutical companies for 26 euros. According to internal sources, the institute would cost about 18 euros to produce. But the three external companies that won the last tender (5.2 billion stamps) prevailed by offering far lower prices: one 13.6 euros, another 12.4, the third just 9. Half the internal production cost of the Poligrafico.
The choice of the polygraph
The contract with the three firms expired earlier this year. Already towards the end of last year, however, Poligrafico, led by the managing director Paolo Aielli, had decided, surprisingly, to transfer all the production of stickers in-house. The new printing machines were immediately purchased to meet the greater production needs, with a cost of at least eleven million euros. These, however, will only be delivered in the coming months. The fleet of machines to support the entire production of pharmaceutical brands, including installation, testing and running-in, should only be fully operational in the late summer. And who knows, incidentally, how much this fleet of machines will work, given that the stamp is destined to change, if only for the diffusion of the electronic prescription, if not to disappear altogether.
The emergency
In the meantime, the stamps that are needed today are almost finished. Poligrafico cannot keep up with the needs of the market. And a new call for tenders for the supply of another 800 million cash on receipts which, given the foreseeable difficulties, was supposed to be done at the beginning of the year has been cancelled. Plus there are paper issues. It is not the first time that the Institute runs into production problems of this kind. With stamps, as with vehicle plates, another «exclusive». At the beginning of 2015, in many provinces, tens of thousands of new cars, lacking registration plates, had to wait weeks for registration.
