Day – Carlino – Nation on Sunday 7 October 2012, page 22
by Perego Achilles
"DEVASTATING" and "crazy" MILAN. Lucia Aleotti, vice president of the Menarini group (16,000 employees, 3 billion euros in revenues and presence in one hundred countries) does not mince words to express the anger of those who invest, produce and export made in Italy medicines every day and see their legs cut off by the government's red card entrance. Which has launched heavy broadsides on the Italian pharmaceutical industry. Two hundred and twenty companies with a turnover of 25 billion (61% exported), invest 2.6 and have 65,000 employees, more than 90% of whom have university degrees or diplomas, underlines Sergio Dompè, president of the homonymous group and former president of Farmindustria.
IN THE SIGHTS OF Italian drug manufacturers (second in Europe only to German ones) there is above all the rule which provides for the obligation, for medicines with expired patents (the 90% of those prescribed) to indicate only the Principia in the recipe. active. A devastating rule because, warns Lucia Aleotti «its sole rationale is to destroy the Italian industrial system. It cannot be said that the pharmaceutical sector has not played its part: in the last five years we have contributed 11 billion to contain spending". Now the spending review imposes another cut of 1.8 billion.
BUT THIS rule is also crazy because "the State does not save a penny given that for each active ingredient it already reimbursed only the lowest price available on the market". Thus, effectively taking away the patient's freedom of choice, the only effect is to hit branded drugs ("For antibiotics, we have also recorded a drop in 50% since August") and favor generics, copies manufactured outside Italy that do not require 15 years of studies and experiments (with investments of over 1 billion) to discover a new drug. «Behind every prescription that emigrates - adds Aleotti - there is a tin that is not produced in Italy, putting factories and jobs (ten thousand) in serious difficulty and the State will be forced to pay Cig and layoffs. "It drives me crazy to think that a country with a mortal need to revive growth and employment has passed a law that will have, if not changed, dramatic consequences".
IN TEN YEARS, the prices of reimbursed medicines have dropped by 38% and today, Dompè recalls, «our pharmaceutical expenditure is the lowest in Europe». Under 180 euros per Italian against a European average of over 250 and by now many class A drugs «have scandalously low prices. A monthly therapy can cost from 3 to 5 euros, 10-15 cases a day «Lo
