Sarantis Michalopoulos | EURACTIV.com
Several
pharmaceutical companies in Greece have threatened to stop supplying the
market with innovative drugs and said they could even withdraw existing
drugs as a result of an obligatory “rebate” imposed by the Greek government and
applied retroactively.
EURACTIV.com
has learnt that pharmaceutical companies based in Greece have contacted the
ministry of health to issue a warning about their development of new innovative
drugs as well as the future provision of therapies already available on the
market. The reason
for this, pharmaceuticals claim, is a measure recently introduced by Athens as
part of the bailout deal with its international lenders, hitting the pharma
industry with an up to 25% levy on the turnover generated by new
patent-protected drugs.