Prices of 188 innovative medicines to be reduced

Saturday, Aug 29, 2015

Dubai: The price of 188 innovative drugs being produced by 27 pharmaceutical companies will be reduced with effect from January 1, 2016, according to the announcement made by Dr Ameen Husain Al Amiri, Assistant Undersecretary for Public Health Policy and Licensing Cector, Ministry of Health.

He was addressing a gathering of the region’s top pharmaceutical company’s representative at the sixth price reduction initiative by the ministry. These include essential drugs meant for ENT, ophthalmology, obstetrics, immunosuppressant medicines, medication for malignant tumours, immunological products and vaccines.

However, the actual price reduction will be announced a week before the date so that pharmacies do not resort to stopping stocking certain medicines, resulting in drug shortages. Since the compliance is voluntary, the ministry wants to give pharmaceutical companies enough time to restructure and rearrange their business plan in order to comply with the new prices.

Since the price reduction initiative launched in 2011, prices of nearly 8,000 medicines have been reduced with active cooperation between pharmaceutical companies and the ministry. Now, the ministry has 488 drugs on the list and will continue the phased price reduction initiative until it achieves its targets.

Maintaining that the ministry was committed to giving the principal pharmaceuticals the opportunity to reduce prices voluntarily, Dr Al Amiri said: “This public-private partnership is strategic and was launched in 2011 when we had the first price reduction and we have gradually included many generic and innovative drugs in this initiative to ultimately benefit the common man. Many of the drugs available here are between two to 50 per cent more expensive than the prices in other GCC countries and some drugs are nearly 100 per cent more expensive. We want to change this gradually over a period of time by phased reduction of prices. Close to 60 per cent of the people in the UAE do not have health-care cover and it is our responsibility to make medicines accessible to the low-income group categories.”

He said they had delayed announcing the sixth initiative by three months on the behest of leading pharmaceutical companies who had asked for time and announcing it in advance now will prepare companies to meet the target.

In addition to this, Dr Al Amiri made two more announcements. The first was regarding the introduction of instructions in Braille about the name of the medicine and its dosage for the benefit of the visually impaired to be printed on the packing and the inclusion of detailed public education and awareness of the drug to be included in the QR code of the medicine in three languages — Arabic, English and Urdu.

The second announcement was made for furthering ties between pharmaceutical companies and the ministry by convening an executive board of nine trustees drawn from international pharmaceutical companies, local companies, pharmacy stores and the ministry. “The members of this board will meet regularly to discuss issues like local manufacturing, strategic partnership, production of innovative drugs, reduction of prices, introduction of better technologies and strategies to support the region during medical emergencies in order to help the UAE shift to another level of sustainability in this field,” he added.

By Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary Senior Reporter