Walter Caballero on decree No. 17: ‘The measure has been improvised and without consulting it as it should have been’

Walter Caballero, a member of the National College of Pharmacists (Conalfarm), referred this Monday to the entry into force of decree No. 17 that orders the 30% reduction of 170 medicines, stating that they are concerned because small pharmacies are about to vanish.

In Caballero’s opinion, said decree has been improvised and without consultation. “It seems to me that it is correct to lower the price of medicines, but we have to start from the point of origin, which is the pharmaceutical companies,” he said.

He added that a morbidity has been created that pharmacies are earning 200% or 300% because medicines are more expensive in Panama, “and this is not from now, it has always been; the laboratories sell the most expensive medicines to us and we don’t know why. You have to ask them and sit down with them.”

Caballero explained that the laboratories set their price after having carried out a marketing study and do not set prices based on reality.