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Generics and biosimilars Initiative

Building trust in cost-effective treatments

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Enfoque por país/Portugal | Posted 16/03/2012 0 Post your comment

First posted: 16 March 2012

The Portuguese generics market is poorly developed* and is one of the smaller markets in Europe by both volume and value.

The market share of generic medicines by volume in 2008 was only 16%, representing 18% in value [1]. Therefore, the generics presence in Portugal could be improved, and the following are some ideas that could help to increase the generics market share in Portugal:

Recommendations

Generics promotion policies should be refined in order to reduce generics prices [2].
Remove regulations imposing a minimum price difference between originator and generic medicines [3].
Set the reference price at the level of the average price of generic medicines in the reference group [3].
Expand INN prescribing through projects promoting medicines databases and computerised prescribing [3].
Eliminate the pharmacist disincentive to dispense generic medicines [3].
Mechanisms for better enforcement of the rules, such as sanctions or financial incentives, should be considered to encourage generics substitution [2].
Policy makers should aim to decrease co-payments for generic medicines [2].

* In countries with developing generic medicines markets, market share of generic medicines does not surpass 40% [4].

References

1. Associação Portuguesa de Medicamentos Genéricos (Apogen). [Market] Mercado [monograph on the Internet]. Oeiras, Portugal, Apogen [cited 2012 Feb 24]. Portuguese. Available from: www.apogen.pt/conteudos/SystemPages/page.asp?art_id=50

2. Österreichisches Bundesinstitut für Gesundheitswesen (ÖBIG). Access to essential medicines in Portugal. 2009.

3. Simoens S, De Coster S. Sustaining generic medicines markets in Europe. 2006 Apr. [monograph on the Internet]. Brussels, Belgium, European Generic medicines Association (EGA) [cited 2012 Feb 24]. Available from: www.egagenerics.com/doc/simoens-report_2006-04.pdf

4. Simoens S. International comparison of generic medicine prices. Curr Med Res Opin. 2007;23(11):2647-54.