Dutch Medicines Market In 1995: Nefarma Report

In 1995, the national pharmaceuticals bill in the Netherlands increased at a rate far in excess of the estimates made by the Health Care Financial Survey (FOZ), as had also been the case in 1994, according to the Dutch research-based drug industry association Nefarma, in its report for the year.

Measures adopted in the last few years to curb drug costs have not produced the changes which the government had envisaged, says Nefarma. The full effect of the voluntary 5% drug price reduction which was implemented on June 1, 1994, did not become fully effective until 1995, the association says, adding that increasingly during the year, the proprietary drugs sector had used price competition, rather than competition based on margins, as a weapon against the inroads made by generic drugs and parallel imports.

Generics And PIs' Growth Exceeded Market As A Whole Growth in the turnover of generics and parallel imports exceeded the growth of proprietary medicines and of the pharmaceutical market as a whole in 1995, says Nefarma. It comments that this development is not only a consequence of substitution, which is being encouraged by the incentive of allowing dispensing chemists to supply cheaper products, but it is also due to the opportunities which the regulations on reimbursement of materials costs offer to dispensing chemists for keeping additional purchasing benefits.