“Mafia” medicine prices endangering lives

With a policy of free supply and demand, the manufacturers, local and international distributors, as well as drug retailers, in complicity with some officials, have created a tangle that,, evidences a mafia that puts lives of  at risk.

PATIENTS wonder, says a  La Estrella investigation how it is possible that in neighboring countries and even in the first world a drug can be bought up to 500% below the price in the local market. They warn that this same cartel generates fictitious and intentional shortages in the Social Security Fund (CSS) and the Ministry of Health, and generate complications that ultimately affect people. with health problems, forced to pay high costs for a product on which they depend.

“Proof that Panamanians pay brutally high prices for drugs: Xalatan rose from $ 55.21 to $65.10 in less than a month,” says Guillermo Adames in his Twitter account. ‘In Spain, these same drops only cost $8.29 euros ($10)”

In another tweet, the social communicator says that the “price of medicines continues to rise excessively. The Tritace of 10 mgs. for patients with high blood pressure increased $5.00, knowing that 40% of Latin Americans are at risk of cardiovascular disease “.

Juan Carlos Planells also used his Twitter account to denounce what could be considered an abuse. ‘Crestor of 28 tablets in Spain is $12. In Panama 30 cost $ 66. Someone should explain why the difference, “he said.

Roger Barés, of the Protection Committee for Patients and Families, warned that “there is a group of bad manufacturers and vendors who control the prices of medicines … Some services put excessive prices.”

The patient advocate pointed out that distributors and pharmacies intentionally cause shortages to make the product more expensive so that public health institutions have to buy it at higher prices. “The sale of medicines is being strangled to force the authorities to buy directly, three, four and even seven times more expensive.”

Minister of the Health portfolio, Miguel Mayo, complains “There is no justification for medicines being so expensive in Panama. The pharmaceutical industry has to introduce their medicines at lower prices and distributors and pharmacies maintain adequate and non-abusive margins, “he said in his Twitter account @mayogastro.

 CSS Director, Julio García Valarini, said  “we are kidnapped’. He calculated the price inflation of private medicine (in general) by 500%. In the specific case of medicines, he mentioned an example: a treatment for renal failure that CSS purchases at $117, a medication that costs $350 at the private pharmacy. In contrast, in Colombia it costs about $48, but “I cannot buy it there because the Law does not allow it, despite the fact that there is a distributor of that medicine here in Panama.” said García Valarini.

Ligia Álvarez, president of the National Association of Pharmacists of Panama, recognizes that it is a reality that the cost of medicines in the country is the highest in the region. However, it considers that the Executive can establish reference prices if it detects surcharges, but it does not do so because of commercial pressures, ‘because we are a market of free supply and demand’.

Carlina Santana, director of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Panama, said that there has been a significant increase in the prices of medicines. If you compare them with those of other countries, the difference is abysmal, he says.

The usual justification: the country is a small market compared to the neighbors. The market for supplies and sales of medicines depends 95% on imported products. Panama is not a manufacturer of medicines: only 5% of national consumption comes from local companies producing that are dedicated to the production of medicines.

In 2018, imports of medicines averaged $40.5 million, according to the Comptroller’s Office. 60% of the products that are imported are destined for drug programs through the CSS.