Reacting to the medicines pricing regulations unveiled earlier on Friday a group representing the pharmaceutical sector said they would consult with government in a bid to avoid a crisis in pharmaceutical delivery.
”The Pharmaceutical Society and its associated bodies will in the next few days make use of the Department of Health’s open door policy in order to avoid a crisis in the delivery of pharmaceutical services to the people of South Africa,” President of the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa, Siddiq Tayob said in a statement.
The statement was released on behalf of the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa, the Community Pharmacist Sector and the United South African Pharmacies.
According to Tayob, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s announcement on Friday was ”very confusing”.
”The devil is in the detail. For example, what is meant by ‘status quo remains the same’ for Schedule 0 medicine and what are the details of the percentage and flat rate for the dispensing fee? In addition the time scales for implementation may be a real problem,” he said, adding that in making medicines more affordable, access and sustainability should not compromised.
Earlier on Friday, Tshabalala-Msimang revealed details of government’s final version of new regulations that could eventually slash the cost of pharmaceuticals to consumers by up to 50%.
”These regulations are landmark in terms of reducing the price of medicines… (and) are extremely far-reaching,” said Tshabalala-Msimang during a meeting with the media and industry representatives.
Friday’s announcement of the final regulations followed extensive comment and debate after draft regulations published in January prompted manufacturers and wholesalers to express their unhappiness.
However, according to Tshabalala-Msimang, the principles of the transparent pricing system contained in the draft regulations remained unchanged.
Central to these principles was a single exit price set by the manufacturer for every medicine; the introduction of a professional fee for dispensing services, replacing commercial mark-ups; and the regulations retaining a strong theme of mandatory disclosure of information relating to pricing.
Tshabalala-Msimang said that while the cornerstones of the regulations remained unmoved, there had been ”significant revisions,” mostly due to additional information being made available to the Pricing Committee and the Department of Health.
”We believe… the regulations to be fair and reasonable,” she said, adding that South Africa was a leading the way, with many developing countries and interest groups paying attention.
Giving a tangible example of how the new regulations will benefit the consumer, Pricing Committee chairperson Professor Di McIntyre said the single exit price meant that manufacturers and wholesalers would have to remove all rebates and discounts when selling the medicine.
McIntyre explained that, for example, if a medicine’s list price was currently R100, with R20 worth of discounts, the actual price was R80.
”The medicine now costs R80, (and) rather than this very obscure and untransparent system of having a list price of R100, and… all these discounts that nobody knows what is happening, everybody will know, the single exit price is R80,” she said.
McIntyre said it was difficult to give a ”precise” figure in rand value as to the extent of the savings the new regulations would realise.
She predicted that savings would be in the ”region of 40% to 50% on average”.
According to a time scale for implementation of the regulations, from May 2, discounting by manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers would become illegal.
By May 26 the list of single exit prices had to be lodged with the Director-General of Health and sales had to be effected at those prices.
Within 90 days of May 2, around August 2, the regulations needed to be fully implemented. ‒ Sapa