[Pharm-policy] Jerusalem Post: New regulations make drug market more competitive

[James Love]

http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/05/30/Health/Health.7481.html

New regulations make drug market more
competitive
By Judy Siegel

(May 30) - Health Minister Shlomo Benizri and Justice
Minister Yossi Beilin hurriedly signed long-awaited
regulations yesterday, allowing parallel imports of many
prescription and over-the-counter medications that open
the market to competition for the first time. 

Benizri said the change will significantly lower the price of
drugs, as they may be brought in by other middlemen and
from other parts of the world, rather than via importers that
have exclusivity agreements with manufacturers. 

The two rushed to sign it after being required by the High
Court of Justice to explain their reasons for not
implementing the changes in the Pharmacists Law - passed
by the Knesset in February 1999. 

The suit was brought against the ministers by Clalit Health
Services, which has much to gain in reduced prices for
drugs that it and other the other health funds must subsidize
for their members. 

However, there was intensive lobbying against it by Israeli
subsidiaries of international pharmaceutical companies and
the giant foreign companies themselves, and the Health
Ministry also needed time to set down limitations to protect
public health. 

The Health Ministry said yesterday that it "demanded the
reform" as a result of high prices for certain medications
that put a heavy burden on individual patients and health
funds subsidizing them for their members. 

The new regulations go into effect on September 1. The
ministry said it would follow and observe developments in
the local pharmaceutical market to ensure "the supply of
high-quality and cheap medications as far as possible for
the entire public." 

Clalit director-general Dr. Yitzhak Peterburg said that "a
new era has begun to integrate Israel with other Western
countries and ends the period of monopoly that Israeli drug
importers enjoyed." 

He predicted that the changes will save the health system
and the general public tens of millions of shekels a year. 

Finance Ministry budget chief David Milgrom had protested
the delay in signing the regulations, stating that it "disrupts
the process of savings in the health system, harms the
financial condition of the health funds, as well as that of the
public." 

Clalit gave several examples of savings under competition:
26 percent less for Evista (an anti-osteoporosis and
anti-breast cancer drug; 69% less for Macrodantin for
urinary infections; and 30% less for Pentasa, a drug for
ulcerative colitis. 

But Sophie Karnowski, managing director of Merck Sharp
& Dohme-Israel, said the approval was "very unfortunate
and a step backwards in the protection of intellectual
property." 

She also said public health could be endangered. With
middlemen transporting and storing drugs under
less-than-optimal conditions and even possibly
counterfeiting drugs, patients will not always be able to
know what they are getting, she said. 

  
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James Love, Director           | http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org 
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