Spain's health ministry calls for ideas on pharma policy

The Spanish medical newspaper Diario Medico has picked up an analysis of the debate around the direction of the Strategic of Pharmaceutical Policy Plan and on the review of the present system of drug reference pricing.

According to this newspaper, the Ministry of Health and Social Policy has requested ideas for the sector for a new Plan, including the proposals by the drug trade body Farmaindustria in its suggested 'Be in Favor of the Health,' which includes a call for the improvement of the efficiency of the supply chain for medicines, and a revision of the present and political co-payments system that it claims acts on demand instead of on the prices and the supply of drugs.

It also confirmed that there are initiatives for this agreement to include the evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of the new medicines by a similar independent organization to the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), that would decide on the inclusion of new therapies under public financing and on their prices.