MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina wants caps on the price of medication: laboratories object

The price of medication can't be left up to the market, Feletti claimed

Argentina's Domestic Trade Secretary, Roberto Felettil Tuesday hinted the Government may advance on imposing some sort of cap on the price of medication, which has sparked reactions from laboratories.

”There cannot be essential consumption such as food or medicine that does not have some degree of State regulation,” Feletti said. “It cannot be left up to the allocation of resources made by the market,” he added, although he admitted companies and laboratories were entitled to a profit.

Feletti met Tuesday with the head of PAMI (Senior Citizens Health and Welfare Agency) Director Luana Volnovich and plans to hold a talk Wednesday with Health Minister Carla Vizzotti to discuss the issue.

According to surveys carried out by the College of Pharmacists, the prices of medicines rose between 45% and 86% so far this year.

In those circumstances, “there is no revenue policy that is sustained if there are misappropriations in essential consumption,” Feletti explained. “But we all know that monopolies if they are not regulated, they adjust by price and not by quantity, he went on. ”Argentina's consumption cannot be confined to the business plans of 30 or 40 companies. This must also be discussed,“ Feletti concluded.

Regarding the 90-day price freeze plan, Feletti highlighted that it has a high degree of compliance, which “is reflected in an average drop in the supermarket basket. Compliance is quite homogeneous,” he stressed. “We took the measure to stop the escalation [of prices] and we believe that this escalation has stopped. Now we see as a more long-term objective to guarantee a broad basic basket of 1,400 or 1,500 products,” he elaborated.

Meanwhile, laboratories grouped in the Argentine Chamber of Medicinal Specialties (CAEME), the Industrial Chamber of Argentine Pharmaceutical Laboratories (CILFA) and the Business Chamber of Laboratories (COOPERALA) expressed their disapproval of Feletti's words.

The companies considered it “unnecessary” to apply a price freeze to the sector, “taking into account the presence of more than 350 laboratories and 229 industrial plants in the country, with 7,300 brands and more than 16,000 presentations of drugs...” due to which “it is unnecessary to alter the rules of free competition through price freezing mechanisms.”

The laboratories also recalled in a joint statement that “for many years the pharmaceutical industry present in Argentina has been making great efforts to maintain the accessibility of medicines to the main funders, social works and prepaid [health care providers], in many cases with a coverage that reaches up to 100% of the value for patients, as occurs in oncological and special treatments, and the 'Vivir Mejor' program implemented by PAMI, with a substantial contribution from laboratories”.