Hungary balances its drugs budget, but at the expense of the pharma industry

The Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund (OEP) concluded a successful year in 2007. The trend in spiraling drug costs was broken and the insurance fund managed to adhere to its target budget for the first time in more than a decade. As Mark Molnar, Head of the Pharmaceutical Department at OEP told to the Marketletter, the insurance fund spent 323.0 billion forint ($1.76 billion) on drugs in 2007, out of which 31.0 billion forint was the contribution paid by pharmaceutical manufacturers. Thus the net OEP spending (292.0 billion forint) was fully in line with the agreed budget for 2007.

During mid-February, all the drugmakers in Hungary were sent a final statement on the payment due on their turnover in 2007. This includes 12% payback after their subsidized drugs and a 5.0 million-forint registration fee for each of their medical representatives. The 10.0 billion-forint registration fee paid to the OEP indicates that there were no significant changes in the number of the around 2,000 medical reps, based on which the calculations were made.

Hungarian patients paid 13.85% more for their medication in 2007. The 50% cut in reimbursement level in the first quarter of 2007 was significantly offset by reduced volume, generic substitution and continuous price reduction during the year.