Interview with the former Minister of Health who defends his provision after the case of anticancer drugs and for other important diseases placed in category C. “The aim is to speed up the placing on the market of new drugs. But if some pharmaceutical company uses the new legislation incorrectly, action will have to be taken".
02 JUL – “No class A drugs were downgraded to class C. It was only allowed that drugs for which the marketing authorization process had already been completed could actually be on the market, without suffering delays, in contrast with European legislation.
In this way we have prevented citizens from going abroad to buy a drug already authorized in Europe, also offering AIFA greater serenity on the negotiations for the reimbursement price".
The former Minister of Health, Renato Balduzzi, defends and clarifies point by point the rationale of the provision of his decree after the case raised by the Express online And Health newspaper. And it sweeps away any inference about the possibility that the law creates discrimination between those who "can" and those who "cannot" afford access to medicines: "it means looking at the new regulatory context only on the surface". It is clear, however, warns Mr Balduzzi that if some pharmaceutical company "uses the new legislation incorrectly, in order to have a long period of time in which to sell the drug at a free price, putting pressure on the individual Regions to buy it for hospital use at conditions disadvantageous for the NHS, specific corrective measures will have to be identified".
Honorable Balduzzi, with the first Aifa determinations in mid-June, your decree is applied which allows a new drug to be marketed more quickly but placing it in the paid category C, "pending" the negotiation of the reimbursement price. Don't you think, however, that in this way access is discriminated on the basis of the patient's income?
Ratio d
