ROME – With the deployments in place, the war of designer drugs has begun. Today the provision introduced in the spending review and voted in the night between Friday and Saturday in the Budget Committee, which provides for a tightening on branded drugs, goes to the Senate floor. Confidence will be placed on the maxi amendment and then the text will pass to the Chamber. Basically, the doctor who prescribes a drug to a chronically ill person for the first time will be obliged to indicate the generic one instead of the branded one; any specific medicinal product must be justified by the doctor with written justification.
Yesterday, to support the appeal made by the pharmaceutical industry to the President of the Senate, the government and the political forces to "reconsider and set aside this measure", Confindustria took the field, arguing that "the introduction of the obligation for doctors to prescribe the active ingredient alone is not justified in terms of reducing public spending, as the Health Service already today reimburses the expense of the drug within the limits of the equivalent one at a lower price. On the contrary, this obligation is likely to further damage the pharmaceutical industry in Italy, already badly hit.
The pharmaceutical sector, continues viale dell'Astronomia, "represents a significant component of Italian industry: it has 65,000 employees and exports 65% of its production". And again «the trademark of a drug helps to protect the result of an onerous research, experimentation, authorization and scientific promotion process and is a guarantee of the quality and correctness of the product».
But the outcry comes mainly from doctors. «This provision is surprising - says Pierluigi Bartoletti, Lazio regional secretary of Fimmg, the Italian federation of general practitioners - I have nothing against the equivalent drug, but this almost resembles a state drug. Which risks creating a series of problems, and above all of making the choice fall only on citizens or pharmacists. Let me give you an example: today a patient with high cholesterol comes to me and I prescribe Torvast for him, he goes to the pharmacist who is required to tell him that the generic with the active ingredient costs 40 cents less and he can choose. Tomorrow, however, I will be forced to prescribe only atorvastatin or I will have to justify a different choice. In short, to do my job I will have to justify myself, I will have an extra responsibility and above all I will lose control of the treatment, as there is a 20 percent more or less tolerance in the pharmacological action of the generic compared to the branded. In short, I consider the generic a resource for the public system but I dispute the method used».
Even harder Massimo Scaccabarozzi, president of Farmindustria: «I hope that there is the will to remedy this rule introduced at 4 in the morning without reflecting on the consequences it could have had. First of all, it's not worthy of a spending review because it doesn't save the state a single euro. On the contrary, it is an ideological rule against brands that has three serious consequences: it deconstructs the country, closes factories and puts workers on the streets. The sector has 65,000 employees and 63,000 in related industries, but if we start buying generics in India or China… Moreover, 88 percent of the drugs are patent expired
