In the midst of a series of complaints from Panamanian society about the high prices of medicines, four bills, which seek to regulate the drug market, were presented in the National Assembly of Deputies. Two were adopted and are on the waiting list to be discussed in the first debate by the members of the Labor, Health and Social Development Commission.
The intention is that the four projects presented are unified to produce a single bill, which allows reducing administrative protocols and regulating drug costs through the creation of a regulatory body for pharmaceutical products.
“The price of medicines has made a crisis. We can’t resist it anymore…”, said deputy Omaira “Mayín” Correa.
Bill 109, which creates the General Superintendency of Medicines, proposed by Deputy Correa, was approved this Thursday, a year after it was presented.
“I feel satisfied for getting a national debate started on the high prices of medicines in Panama,” which are even one thousand percent higher than the sales prices in other countries, Correa said.
The Draft Law of the deputy Zulay Rodríguez, the 208 was also adopted. “They have let these pharmaceutical companies practice oligopoly. Four or five businessmen have agreed to set the price they want,” Rodríguez reiterated.
The deputy, Leandro Ávila has also presented a legislative initiative to import, without intermediaries, medicines and end the monopoly that is in the hands of a few conglomerates that control the market.
“We must establish a policy for direct international purchases with pharmaceutical laboratories,” said the deputy.
Correa, for his part, proposed to the Labor, Health and Social Development Commission that a body of advisers analyze one of the four proposals so that only one comes out.
“I spoke with the honorable Ávila, and Zulay Rodríguez to unify the proposals and they told me that they were totally in agreement. They have the same objective: to lower the price of medicines,” Correa pointed out.
