Automatic price hikes for medicines linked to Euro exchange rate

The "Communiqué on the Pricing of Medicinal Products for Human Use," prepared by the Ministry of Health, has been published and entered into force. The regulation introduces new rules on many topics, ranging from reference country principles in determining medicine prices to Euro exchange rate updates, and from generic medicine ratios to the announcement calendar for price lists.

While the communiqué does not include a single direct fixed price hike rate, it establishes an automatic mechanism that allows foreign exchange rate changes to be reflected in prices without the need for an application. Accordingly, changes in the periodic Euro value will be updated for product prices and cost card values without requiring companies to make separate applications.

HOW WILL THE NEW SYSTEM WORK?

France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece will be accepted as reference countries in the calculation of medicine prices. The Euro will be taken as the basis for the actual source price calculation. According to the information in the source, the current Euro exchange rate is at the level of 55.92 lira.

For price-protected products, the source price will be applied as 80 percent of the benchmark source price. For non-price-protected reference medicines, rates of 100 percent or 60 percent will apply depending on whether a generic product is available on the market.

The 60 percent rate applied for the first generic products will be implemented gradually. In this context, 80 percent will be taken as the basis for the first year, 75 percent for the second year, and 70 percent for the third year. It will also be possible to keep these rates at higher levels depending on the market share of domestic generic medicines.

With the new regulation, medicine price lists will be announced every Friday and will enter into force on the following Tuesday. Medicines that have not been on the Turkish market for three years will be announced every January; if no objection or explanation is received from the companies, they will be removed from the list in February.

News Source: 12punto