Greece as a point of reference

Despite all that has been said and written about the Novartis affair in Greece, it is all still at the level of speculation and, much of the time, nothing but malicious rumor.

And it is by no means a certainty that everything in this case will be proven.

What we can be sure of, however, is that for the Swiss pharmaceutical company, whose scandalous practices are being investigated the world over, Greece has been point of reference.

Simply put, this means that the prices of medicines in our country have served as the standard by which prices were determined in other countries, and not just European ones.

An apparently negligible price increase in Greece - a small market, but, at the same time, an expanded one as well, because of a long tradition of consuming many medicines - would also lead, by default, to price hikes in other markets, which would...