Prices of generic drugs to be cut

Minister of Health: prices of generic products will be 30 percent less than those of their reference drugs

The Minister of Public Health Ali Hasan Khalil announced a decision to reduce the prices of 675 kinds of generic drugs starting the first of January 2012.

Khalil said that the medicines registered at the Ministry of Health were divided into two categories: Marketed drugs (4,525), and drugs which are not available at the market (1,369). He said that around half of the drugs available for sale at the market are generics (2,284).

Generic drugs are similar to brand name listed drug products in dosage, form, safety, and intended use. They are usually sold for significantly lower prices than their branded equivalents, as their manufacturers do not put up with costs of drug discovery and research.

The President of the Order of Pharmacists, Ziad Nassour, said that the pharmacists support the minister’s decision to lower the prices of generic drugs.

“It is natural for the prices of generic products to be lower than the originator (branded or reference drugs),” he said.
Nassour said that lately the prices of branded products have been reduced, and thus the price of some medicines became similar to, or even lower, than that of their corresponding generics.

The minister said that the price of generics will be reduced so that it would be at least 30 percent less than that of the branded products. He also said that whenever the prices of the brand names are reduced, the prices of the relevant generics would ultimately decrease proportionally.

The minister said that the decision to slash the prices of generics would be enacted through Law 306, which regulates the procedure of pricing drugs.