Spain's pharmaceutical industry requests a meeting with the Spanish Prime Minister

The governing bodies of Spain's drug industry association Farmaindustria met in an extraordinary session last week to assess the impacts regarding the package of measures on pharmaceutical expenditure which was approved by the Council of Ministers, and the lobby group has called for a meeting with the Prime Minister.

In what was described as a 'mortal blow' to Spain's pharmaceutical sector last month, the nation's government has announced that it is cutting the prices of patented prescription drugs by as much as 23% in the hope of reducing what the public health system spends on medicines. The savings should amount to roughly 1.3 billion euros ($1.6 billion; The Pharma Letter May 17).

Farmaindustria stated it is a very harsh measure, disproportionate and unfair for the sector. It will have serious effects with regards to employment (losses of 5,000 direct jobs and 15,000 indirect or induced), and will slow down R&D carried out in Spain (with reductions in investments of around 300 million euros [$370 million] annually). This in turn will paralyze the productive activity of many pharmaceutical companies forcing some plants to even close down, which will lead the sector to a compulsory restructuring with devastating consequences, the association warned.