Saturday, Aug 27, 2016

Dubai: In its seventh and last initiative to reduce prices of medicines, the Ministry of Health and Prevention has announced a price reduction in 762 innovative drugs manufactured by 39 international pharmaceutical companies.

This round of price reductions will mean a relief of Dh279 million to the common man, the ministry said.

The initiative, which was launched in 2011, was undertaken by the ministry to bring prices at a par with the other GCC countries and make health care more affordable in the country.

The drugs included in the seventh initiative belong to a large spectrum of diseases, ranging from heart, opthlamology, endocrinology, ENT, gynaecology, gastroenterology, oncology, immno-suppressant drugs and vaccines.

Dr Ameen Hussain Al Amiri, assistant undersecretary for medical practice and licensing sector, said: “In order to provide world-class health care to all and make high quality of medicines available to the poor, we have been conducting this drug price reduction drive since 2011 and since then we have reduced prices of over 8,975 drugs in the range of two per cent to 65 per cent. Of the 762 drugs, prices of 657 drugs will be reduced from September 1, while prices of the remaining 105 medicines on the list will be reduced with effect from January 1, 2017. With this initiative, more than 80 per cent of our medicines are on a par with the prices of other GCC countries and the remaining 20 per cent are slightly higher as we are trying to support the investment of international pharma companies in the UAE and also encouraging our indigenous pharmaceutical manufacturing to take off. But we will continue price reduction and will introduce a similar reduction in the prices of generic drugs, after launching an initiative to study generic drug prices and food supplements from 2017.”

Innovative drugs are new formulations developed by big pharmaceutical companies after investing billions in research and development to come out with revolutionary new treatments to treat any kind of disease, while generic drugs are those that use the same salt or formulation to create non-branded versions of the innovative medicines to make the cost of treatment affordable for the masses.

Price reductions so far

A look at the seven initiatives so far

July 1, 2011 — 565 innovative drugs

June 1, 2012 — 115 generic drugs

June 1, 2013 — 6791 innovative drugs

January 1, 2014 — 207 innovative drugs

February 1, 2015 — 280 innovative medicines

January 1, 2016 — 142 innovative drugs

September 1, 2016 to January 1, 2017 — A total of 762 innovative drugs.

By Suchitra Bajpai ?Chaudhary Senior Reporter

Gulf News 2016. All rights reserved.