Deal to cut 200 drug prices
July 10, 2007
The government and the pharmaceutical sector reached an agreement yesterday that will see the prices of over 200 medicines cut by 10 percent as of today. The agreement is to last for 60 days, and besides the 10-percent cut, will also freeze the prices of all medicines during that period.
The agreement was signed at a meeting of the three main pharmaceutical chambers and President Néstor Kirchner “and will be applicable… throughout the country as of today,” Health Minister Ginés González García announced.
The agreement comes as the latest in a series of similar agreements that the government has signed with various industrial sectors in recent weeks in an attempt to rein in inflation.
Besides discussing the economy in general and the pharmaceutical industry in particular, the businessmen also asked the government to double the tax reimbursements on exports.
González García and the businessmen admitted that the governments generic medicines policy has helped prices remain relatively stable.