After topping the Senate’s agenda for several weeks, lawmakers voted in favor of the amendment to the Sanitary Code (File Nº 9,914-11) so that Deputies may finish its legislative process and regulate the sector of generic or bioequivalent drugs – avoiding the vertical integration of laboratories and pharmacies. The initiative (promoted by several senators) aims to increase the availability and incorporation of these drugs to the national market, so long as these meet the therapeutic criteria and are offered at a considerably lower value.

Guido Girardi (Party for Democracy), one of the project’s authors, pointed out that this regulation is a necessary step for Chile-given the price difference that exists between the products offered, close to 3000%. The purpose of this bill is to facilitate access to low-cost medicines, ensuring that the component is highlighted first in the label, followed by the brand of the laboratory and finally the grammage of the drug.

In this way, the National Congress advances in a measure that seeks to stop punishing the most vulnerable families – especially in an area as sensitive as health costs. In addition, the parliamentarians made a modification to the bill’s content to prevent companies from submitting complaints to the Minister of Health stemming from resolutions of the Director of the Institute of Public Health referring to the Health Code. This point generated some divisions among those present, who did not agree on how to guarantee due process.

Sernac works to make the market more transparent

The National Consumer Service (Sernac) detected price differences of approximately US $ 90 between the original drugs and their generic variants. Several pharmacy chains were included in the entity’s analysis and five drugs presented the most differences in their value (Atorvastatin, Omeprazole, Azithromycin, Losartan and Metformin) – in some cases the original versions cost up to 19 times as much as the bioequivalent product.

These drugs serve the most varied purposes: from treating cholesterol, through gastric problems, hypertension and diabetes. Ernesto Muñoz, director of the agency, stressed that the idea is to carry out surveillance and summon consumers to demand all available information so as to achieve significant savings in the purchase of prescriptions. It is important to point out that the efficacy and the active principle are identical among the variants present, and doctors should also contribute by refraining from suggesting specific brands, as stated by the president of the Medical Association, Izkia Siches.