Spain Rx law "harmful and unnecessary"

A controversial new law, aimed at curbing galloping increases in public health spending, is expected to come into effect in Spain by the summer. Farmaindustria, the country's top pharmaceutical trade association, is unhappy with the provisions of the new drug law (LdM), which it believes will cost the industry up to 1.0 billion euros ($1.19 billion) and lead to pharmaceutical plant closures, losing as many as 2,700 jobs in the process. In addition, the new legislation threatens to impose reference drug price cuts of up to 20%, with crippling effects on key research investment, which could see cutbacks of 275.0 million euros in R&D, with harmful consequences for job creation.

Drug price increases are already under control

Earlier this month, Emilio Moraleda, Farmaindustria's president, in a presentation to the lower chamber of the Cortes Generales' health care commission (CdS), made an impassioned speech, in which he outlined the devas-tating effects of the draft proposals on the drugs industry, condemning the proposals as harmful and unnecessary. Mr Moraleda stated that the problem of ballooning pharma-ceutical price increases was largely under control already, with Spain's drug bill for 2006 expected to rise 5%, com-pared with 5.6% in 2005 and 6.4% in 2004 (Marketletters, passim). In 2007, the downward trend is expected to continue, he said.