pharmacy sector to be made "more competitive"

kdowling

the government has recently agreed with the IMF to introduce new legislation to make the pharmacy sector "more competitive".
Has anyone any ideas about what these changes will be?

ballsymchugh

probably another unicare or boots buying up more cheap independent stores on the slide.

bleg

kdowling wrote: »

the government has recently agreed with the IMF to introduce new legislation to make the pharmacy sector "more competitive".
Has anyone any ideas about what these changes will be?

They'll probably make it the most deregulated pharmacy market in Europe...oh wait.

bythewoods

Could this possibly be in reference to Generic substitution being made compulsary?

bleg

bythewoods wrote: »

Could this possibly be in reference to Generic substitution being made compulsary?

It would have to be made legal first.

bythewoods

bleg wrote: »

It would have to be made legal first.

Which it will be, if reference pricing is introduced, which is already behind schedule.

bleg

Moot point anyway. It wouldn't make pharmacy more competitive, just less expense on drugs.

To be honest I dunno why pharmacy is mentioned in the deal. There are far more areas than pharmacy that are much much less competitive.

Delancey

ballsymchugh wrote: »

probably another unicare or boots buying up more cheap independent stores on the slide.

God forbid !

Last week I went to my local pharmacy ( long established ) to buy a syringe (minus needle) so I could give administer oral medication to my dog.
The pharamcist refused payment for the syringe and instead asked me to put something in the ISPCC collection tin on the counter.
A small but nice and appreciated gesture that I wager would never happen in a Boots.
Apologies if a tad off-topic.

ricardo1

kdowling wrote: »

the government has recently agreed with the IMF to introduce new legislation to make the pharmacy sector "more competitive".
Has anyone any ideas about what these changes will be?

OP
Can you post the link to this press release.

bleg

It's in the memorandum of understanding.

ricardo1

Okay thanks Bleg point understood!
I was hoping someone could point me towards where this is coming from and hopefully (to put it mildly) not see the word (sheltered) in this memorandum.

bleg

iii. Structural reforms
To increase growth in the domestic services sector
Government will introduce legislative changes to remove restrictions to trade and competition
in sheltered sectors including:
the legal profession, establishing an independent regulator for the profession and
implementing the recommendations of the Legal Costs Working Group and outstanding
Competition Authority recommendations to reduce legal costs.
medical services, eliminating restrictions on the number of GPs qualifying and removing
restrictions on GPs wishing to treat public patients as well as restrictions on advertising.
the pharmacy profession, ensuring that the recent elimination of the 50% mark-up paid for
medicines under the State's Drugs Payments Scheme is enforced.

https://wikispooks.com/w/images/1/1c/Ireland-EU-IMF-memo.pdf


I don't really get it because the PCRS hasn't reimbursed at 50% since 2009. Maybe they're trying to fix prices under the €120 threshold? I'm not too sure the Competition Authority would be big fans of that.

Ah crap. Pharmacy wages seem to be coming down all the time.:(

Gandalph

Not sure about pharmacies in Ireland but some international pharmacies are getting patents lifted on some of their products, maybe this will have some effect here.

bleg

Gandalph wrote: »

Not sure about pharmacies in Ireland but some international pharmacies are getting patents lifted on some of their products, maybe this will have some effect here.

What?

RobFowl

bleg wrote: »

What?

Think he means pharmaceutical manufacturers !
In my experience most branded drugs are cheaper just now. Margins seem to have been slashed generally. Not sure there is much more that can be safely done to make pharmacy more "competitive".

palmcut

RobFowl wrote: »

Think he means pharmaceutical manufacturers !
In my experience most branded drugs are cheaper just now. Margins seem to have been slashed generally. Not sure there is much more that can be safely done to make pharmacy more "competitive".

Only about 16% of branded drugs are at present cheaper than the generic equivalent.
This will change shortly following an agreement between the HSE and the generic drug companies. The rumour is that the generic drugs that are currently more expensive than the equivalent brands will be reduced in price either on 1/7/2011 or 1/8/2011.

Generic substitution and reference pricing will not be introduced until mid 2012. The expectation then is that generic prices will be around 20% cheaper than the equivalent brands.

palmcut

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/bills28/bills/2012/6312/b6312s.pdf

The government have just published their generic substitution and reference price bill for drugs. As far as I can tell this is due to be debated in the Senate during the week starting 16/7/2012.

bleg

I don't know if this is going to make much of a difference. Any pharmacy I've worked in has switched the majority patients over to generic products over the course of the last few years.

Nonoperational

It could make a huge difference bleg if generics were priced somewhere near what they actually cost... There's a huge huge elephant standing right in the centre of the room...

bleg

gpf101 wrote: »

It could make a huge difference bleg if generics were priced somewhere near what they actually cost... There's a huge huge elephant standing right in the centre of the room...

Ah yea but you'll have to move away from the current framework with IPHA and the generic organisation (name escapes me). You'd also have to install a different mechanism for compensation of pharmacists under the community drug schemes.

Nonoperational

Yep, the whole system is pretty poor really at the moment. Like after the initial 20% when the generic comes out the customer sees little benefit in taking the generic. You couldn't say the same for pharmacies. Don't know how what the answer is but I don't particularly like how it is at the moment.