Exclusive| Pharmaceutical division seeks drug price increase at crucial meeting with EDA next week
Updated 5/19/2024 10:28:00 AM
Arab Finance: The Pharmaceutical Division at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce will meet with representatives from the Egyptian Drugs Authority (EDA) next week to discuss the division's demands to increase drug prices in Egypt by up to 50%, the division’s head Ali Aouf told Arab Finance.
Auf has cited several reasons for the division's demands to increase drug prices, among them is the high cost of imported raw materials and the growing burdens related to production costs, which include salaries, electricity, fuel, and other expenses that have driven up the price of drugs in Egypt.
He anticipates that the government will not consent to a 50% increase in drug prices. Additionally, he projects discussions between the government and the division to yield up to a 25% increase in drug prices as a temporary measure until substantial solutions to address this problem are offered.
The Forced Pricing Issue and Drugs Shortage
Auf clarified that forced pricing of medicines will be one of the subjects covered at the government-Pharmaceutics Division meeting.
The pharmaceutical sector is experiencing a crisis as a result of its inability to adjust for changes in cost differences in USD because the industry is subject to forced pricing, which prohibits price modifications without EDA's approval, he said.
Auf added that the meeting will also discuss the future of the pharmaceutical industry in Egypt with a more comprehensive view. The meeting will also address the issue of drugs shortage, with around 500 drug groups missing from the pharmaceutical market so far.
For his part, Mahmoud Fouad, the executive director of the Egyptian Center for the Right to Medicine, confirmed the existence of an actual crisis in the Egyptian pharmaceuticals market due to the import of about 95% of pharmaceutical raw materials.
Fouad affirmed that Egypt has been experiencing a medication shortage crisis for about two years and a half.
If this crisis is not resolved by July 2025, it will escalate into a medication scarcity crisis due to the unavailability of numerous medications, including essential ones like thyroid, diabetes, and heart medications.
Providing USD for importing Essential Medications
Fouad notes that raising prices is not the solution, as there is no guarantee against future demands for further increase in drug prices of medicine. The ideal solution lies in supporting and developing pharmaceutical companies affiliated with the Ministry of Public Business Sector, and the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) should provide the necessary dollars to pharmaceutical companies that demand imports.
Moreover, Yass Rajaee, Assistant Chairman of the Drug Authority for Media Affairs, said that the meeting will tackle multiple axes of the pharmaceutical industry in Egypt and that the authority will listen to the demands of the division in what serves the industry and its future.
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