Specialty Pharmacy in the European Union Business & Marketing Article (Article Sample)

Specialty Pharmacy in the European Union
By Dimitris Dogramatzis, RPh, PhD, Community Pharmacist in Athens, Greece.
Specialty drugs are used in the treatment of chronic and complex conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. Characterized by high cost and long therapy duration, they are outpacing the traditional pharmaceutical sales growth, and were expected to approach 100bn by 2011 (Walgreens, 2009). The present article evaluates the state of specialty pharmacy in the EU and compares it to that of the US market, under the light of recent economic developments.
A CONTINENT IN RECESSION
In February 2012 the European Commission (EC) announced that the euro zone economy would shrink by 0.3% in 2012. In May 2012, Spain announced that they had entered recession, thus joining other Euro-area members also in recession, namely Belgium, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, and Slovenia. Simultaneously, Greece revealed that its Q1-2012 GDP had shrunk by 6.2% versus Q1-2011!
Greece started to react to the crisis in spring 2010, with price and margin reductions and VAT increases followed by a decrease in 2011. Generic prices were lowered to 90% of the originals’ and a positive and a negative list were implemented. Spain reduced the retail price of generics by 30%, and originals’ by 7.5%, and changed the reference price system and external price referencing, allowing lower prices. Ireland and Germany imposed price reductions and reference prices. In Germany, pharmas were obliged to produce a value-assessment dossier demonstrating added therapeutic benefit of a new medicine, to be used for price and rebate negotiations with the sickness funds, while there was a 6%-to-16% increase in the mandatory rebate Social Health Insurance demands from manufacturers.
FOR A FISTFUL OF EURO