Price revised for more than 17,000 prescription drugs

On Wednesday, the Official State Gazette (BOE) published a Ministerial Order from the Ministry of Health, by which the reference price system for medicines in the National Health Service (SNS) has been updated.

In total, it reviews the prices of 17,671 medications, of which 13,994 are dispensable in pharmacies and 3,727 in hospitals.

The new Reference Price Order will produce an estimated saving of 217.54 million euro: 160.41 million euro in hospital medicines and 57.13 million euro in medicines dispensed in pharmacies.

In addition, it creates 16 new sets of drug presentations that are dispensed in pharmacies and 17 sets of drug presentations for hospital settings; and reviews the reference prices of the already existing sets, which correspond to 444 dispensable medications in pharmacies and 259 in hospitals. It also eliminates 16 sets of drug presentations, 11 in pharmacies and 5 in hospitals.

The last update of the reference sets of medicines and their reference prices occurred by Order SND/1147/2022, of November 23 last year. Through the new Order, the annual update is carried out, with the determination of the new sets and their reference prices, the review of the reference prices previously set and the deletion of the sets that have no longer met the requirements.

The reference price of the sets is calculated based on the lowest cost per treatment and day of the presentations included in each one. To guarantee the supply of certain medications and their permanence in the pharmaceutical provision of the SNS, exceptional mechanisms have been articulated to the general calculation rule.

The Weighted Reference Price applies to presentations with special dosages, serious illnesses or whose prices have been reviewed in the last two years due to lack of profitability by the Interministerial Commission on Drug Prices.

For its part, the Minimum Reference Price of each presentation has been set at 1.60 euro.

Finally, the Non-Review of Drug Prices has been applied to drugs considered essential by the World Health Organisation (WHO) because they cover priority health needs of the population and must be available at all times. This measure affects 30 reference sets and, specifically, 361 presentations.

Pharmacies will still be dispensing medications at the current retail price prior to this reduction until the last day of the first month following the date of application of the Order, that is, until December 31, 2023.

The Reference Price System (SPR) was implemented two decades ago in Spain, with the aim of controlling the prices of financed medicines.

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