Spanish industry pledge on drug costs

Spanish pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies haveagreed to contribute approximately $300 million to help keep down medicine costs, says a report in Expansion, a Spanish-language journal published in the USA.

Most of the funding, about $240 million, will come from drugmakers, with almost a third of this being equivalent to the reduction in margins imposed by the government generic drugs and benchmark prices policy. A further large chunk of industry funds will go to public research projects and, as a quid pro quo, the government will look at drug prices on an annual basis and increase the number of new products available.

The national pharmaceutical industry association, Farmaindustria, has already pledged to invest $122 million in biotechnology R&D in the country, says Expansion. The government is anxious to have the drugmakers, many of which are multinationals, invest in Spain, at a time when mergers could cause their departure, it adds.