To control spending on social security, the Government foresees a saving of 1,100 million euros in medicines and medical devices in 2023. The industrialists estimate that they will be harmed by a sum of 3,500 million euros and ask the Executive to review their copy.
Big Pharma begins a showdown against the state. By interposed calculators. In question: the, presented this Monday by the Government, which foresees a saving of up to 1,100 million euros in medicines and medical devices next year. In total, the allocation for spending on medicines is set at 24,600 million euros in 2023, compared to 26,400 million in 2022. They are 1,800 million less, that is, the famous saving of 1,100 million aimed at manufacturers, to whom 720 million efforts are added on the side of Health Insurance to better regulate the appropriateness of care and prescriptions. “This amount (…) seems knowingly set below the needs of the population,” protests Leem, the Federation of Pharmaceutical Companies, in a press release published this Tuesday, after a meeting of its Accounts Committee.
In , the savings foreseen by the State will come from 900 million euros in price reductions negotiated with pharmaceutical companies in reimbursable health products. In addition, 200 million euros will be recovered through the famous “safeguard clause”, a contribution mechanism that manufacturers pay to health insurance when their billing exceeds a certain threshold set by the social security financing law. But for Leem, who made his own calculations, the bill will be much higher than announced. “The figures presented by the government are dishonest,” he is outraged within the federation.
Sleight of hand over the “escape clause”
Because there the safeguard clause is totally undervalued. In fact, in line with the net growth of their activity in the last three years (+6% per year), driven by expensive innovative therapies, manufacturers expect to register net sales of 28,000 million euros in 2023. That is, a surplus 3,400 million euros compared to the limit set by the PLFSS.[…]