Pharmaceutical drug

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.

Patient and non-governmental organizations have again warned of the threatening consequences of re-export of medicines. According to their data, 59% of imported medicines from the European Union are exported back.

Health Minister Andreas Xanthos has issued a circular allowing patients and doctors to request imports of pioneering drugs that are not on the EOPYY national health insurance organization's approved list when the medicines in question are for treating a life-threatening or debilitating illness.

Greeks are resisting efforts to promote the use of generic medicines over more costly brand-name drugs, with genomes accounting for just 25 percent of total sales today compared to 18.5 percent before the start of the crisis.

Given that creditors had set a target of 60 percent in order to curb state expenditures on medicine, Brussels is frustrated with Greece's lack of progress.

In an extensive piece titled “Poor Greece splurges on costly drugs, to Brussels’s annoyance”, author Carmen Paun explains how the debt-stricken country has been squandering large sums of money on extremely expensive drugs despite the EU’s pressure to turn to more affordable drugs -so called

As a cross-party parliamentary committee prepares to investigate instances of corruption in Greece's health sector, Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis said that a scandal embroiling the Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis and thousands of Greek doctors and health professionals, "surpasses" the notorious Siemens cash-for-contracts affair.

The high price of new cancer drugs is indefensible and unsustainable, say two of the world’s leading cancer research institutions, who propose a different way to develop them that could sideline big pharma.

Turkey's Social Security Institution (SGK) is planning to distribute imported medicines to patients via the national postal service PTT, as part of austerity measures, daily Cumhuriyet reported on Feb. 2.  

Pharmacists and patients are suffering from medicine shortages in the market as medical firms and depots have allegedly suspended the release of goods amid upcoming price hikes due on Feb. 20, after the Health Ministry's pricing commission announced that it would increase the currency rate for prices of imported medicine.

A man living in the western province of Manisa has applied to the provincial pharmacy unit of a health directorate after cardiac drugs failed to dissolve in his body within 24 hours on suspicion of being fake, which ultimately prompted its transference to the Health Ministry for examination, Doğan News Agency has reported.