LAVE Voices Opinion On Venezuelan Pricing Debacle

In the light of the arrests made recently in the Venezuelan pharmaceutical industry concerning overpricing of medicines (Marketletter August 1), the industry association representing the national pharmaceutical companies, LAVE, has informed the Marketletter of its version of the sequence of events leading to the arrests.

LAVE says that for around three years the Ministry for Public Works (Fomento) in Venezuela and the pharmaceutical industry have reached agreements on the pricing of medicines in the free market. In many cases prices remained stable for around six months, it says.

The most recent agreement between the two covered the period from August 1, 1993 to November 30, 1993. The industry raised its prices in line with inflation as calculated by the Venezuelan central bank for the previous month. The inflation index for the five-month period was: July 3.1%; August 3.1%; September 3.3%; October 5.0%; and November 3.6%.