Around a third of medicines authorized in Portugal did not reach the market, including critical medicines, limiting patient access, reveals the Equity Index of Access to Medicines released this Wednesday, February 25th.
The study promoted by the Portuguese Association of Medicines for Equity in Health (Equalmed) shows that “around 33% of marketing authorizations did not result in effective commercialization, including some medicines classified as critical, which limits real access for patients”.
Speaking to the Lusa agency, the president of the association, João Paulo Nascimento, explained that this situation is related to “economic viability and the pricing policy” practiced in Portugal.
“This is an area in which Equalmed has, over the years, worked with the guardianship, in order to ensure that we have policies that recognize the value of the medicine, not only in terms of price, but the efficiency that the medicine itself brings to the Portuguese market”, said the person in charge.
But he pointed out that, compared to the reference countries in setting the price of medicines – Spain, Italy, France and Belgium – Portugal has “practically a third of the medicines that are approved and end up not being marketed”.
According to the analysis, Portugal also has less competition for active substances compared to reference countries.
However, Portugal “is a reference” in the impact of generic and biosimilar medicines, consecutively presenting the highest value in the group of countries analyzed, also standing out for its speed in approving the financing of these medicines.
According to the study, these medicines were “the drivers behind the increase in patient treatment”, with a growth of 6.2% per year since 2016, representing 74% of the total increase in patients treated, and reduced the average price per treatment by 15%.
“In the last 10 years, generic and biosimilar medicines have made it possible to treat more than 1 million and 700 thousand Portuguese people. So, this is not just a question of balancing accounts, it is also accessibility to the medicine and the equity that we aim for”, highlighted João Paulo Nascimento.
Despite these advances, the executive said that more growth is needed: “Portugal has followed an extraordinary path for at least 10 years with a policy in which the market and the development of generic and biosimilar medicines have effectively made a significant contribution, but we have had a stabilized share practically for five years.”
For five years, participation in Portugal has been “between 50 and 52%” when in most of the most developed countries in Europe it is 80%”, he pointed out.
“Therefore, we need policies that effectively favor and encourage the use of these medicines, because we already realize that they are tools, they are essential health technologies for the balance of the health system”, he argued.
In contrast, Portugal has one of the worst times for innovation financing, with a median of 795 days in 2024, compared to 391 in Italy, 523 in France, 567 in Spain and 476 in Belgium.
The study was born from the need to measure equity in access to medicines in Portugal: “We represent the generic, biosimilar and value-added medicines industry and, over the years, we have contributed greatly to the balance of equity in health”.
“However, in recent years, and also based on studies that have been published internationally, we felt the need to create an indicator, an index of equity in access to medicine”, said João Paulo Nascimento.
The index assesses the economic capacity of families, the sustainability of the healthcare system, the regulation and approval of medicines, and the number of healthcare professionals and institutions that Portugal has per 100 thousand inhabitants.
Leave a Reply