DEVELOPMENTS IN THE GREEK HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

• South alliance after the EUROMED conference

With the “Declaration of Malta“, 6 southern European countries defined the cooperation priorities in the pharmaceutical sector and in the field of negotiations with the pharmaceutical industry. Ministers of Healthcare from Malta, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Portugal have agreed to set up a Technical Commission on exploring possible ways of voluntary cooperation in various areas, such as disseminating information, recognizing good practices, horizon scanning for innovative medicines and treatments, exploring possible mechanisms for price negotiations and joint procurement.

• Fourth Memorandum: The next day on expensive drugs and generics.

Dystopic is the future for pharmaceutical companies after the recent intervention in the pharmaceutical sector with the 4^th memorandum. Horizontal measures were – once again – the mantra of government reform, leading the market to shrink further. The pharmaceutical industry’s returns to the state are expanding and no one is happy. Neither Greek nor multinational pharmaceuticals.

• New anti-peoples measures with the 4th Memorandum

The measures voted in May lead to an increase in health cost for patients. And they are resulting in downgrading healthcare for those who do not have to pay. They further aggravate the conditions for meeting the healthcare needs of workers and the poor popular strata.

The measures taken by the government one after the other and in the health sector – which add to the existing ones – further open the way to support competitiveness and capitalist development. They further aggravate the conditions for meeting the health needs of workers and the poor folk layers.

 What the measures include:

1. The new law states the release of the price for non-prescription drugs (OTC) in the name of competitiveness. It is hundreds of consumer medicines -which in recent years are increasing in number; and for which patients pay 100% of the price.

2. The same law provided the so-called “insurance value” of drugs to which the participation of the insurance fund is calculated to compensate drugs and which (insurance value) is typically lower than the retail price. The difference is paid by the patients.

3. A lot of drugs are removed from the list with the medications that are recompensed by the insurance funds. As the budget for health is closed for every new innovative drug that the list will include similar value drugs will be removed even if these are crucial for the health of thousands of people.

As long as Health remains a commodity and the criterion of growth is profit, workers and poor strata cannot expect anything good. Particularly for life-specific issues, popular struggle needs to be stepped up to ask for increased state funding, free medicines to everyone without any cuts or cuts. Working class must create the necessary social and economic conditions in order to put all the achievements of science and technology at the service of their needs.

 GREEK PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES

• Famar pharmaceuticals is now in the hands of banks and funds. Alpha bank and Eurobank now hold the 71,7% of the company from May 2017. The transfer to the banks is a continuation of the implementation of the Restructuring Protocol, according to which Marinopoulos Holding S.a.r.l. had agreed to sell the company’s shares to the banks.

• The Novartis dossier opens, and by the first 15th of May, the Health Examination Board will have the first official reports of the Center for the Control of Big Wealth Taxers (KEFOMEP) for top executives of the pharmaceutical company and other involved in the scandal. According to information, the first figures reveal the path of amounts deposited into bank accounts in Greece directly from abroad – without the intermediary of Novartis Hellas – and cannot be justified. The competent authorities have already called on the beneficiaries of the suspicious accounts to be apologized as they are scrutinized for tax evasion and money laundering. The US is in contact with Greek prosecutors for any significant findings, while the two key informants in the case, who have provided the largest amount of evidence in US Justice, are among those controlled by the Greek tax authorities.

• A new record for exports broke Pharmathen in 2016. They accounted for 72% of turnover, reaching 144.9 million for a total turnover of 202.2 million euros. The share of exports in the turnover is expected to increase further this year, as it is estimated to reach 155 million euros.

• On May 3, the leading Swedish biopharmaceutical company Sobi ™ (Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (publ) officially announced the launch of its activity in Greece, with an office that works in Athens.

• The lawsuit for the DePuy scandal was launched, which allegedly overstated orthopedic items, causing a loss of at least EUR 11.5 million for the Greek State. According to the Appeal Board’s appeal, from 2000 to 2006, the company allegedly bribed 114 public hospitals, clinics and physicians with money and other benefits to use their orthopedic items that were sold overstated by 35%.

• In 2017, Demo begins work on the creation of the 4th production unit in Kryoneri where it is based. It is noted that over the past three years, an investment of € 35 million has been launched to further modernize the machinery and expand the pharmaceutical and storage facilities

• The decision to reduce the number of drug companies with which it collaborates has been received by MSD. In particular, from the beginning of 2018 MSD will have its products to be distributed to 100 of the approximately 130 drugstores with which it cooperates today.

• In spite of the existing problems, the export dynamism of the Greek pharmaceutical industry is particularly inspiring. According to a report of the Pan-Hellenic Association of Exporters, the medicines occupy the second place among the top 20 exported products of Greece immediately after the oil minerals.

  MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS IN INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

• The company Fresenius plans to buy Akorn, a generic pharmaceutical company at a cost of 3.7 billion dollars to enter the generics market.

• The neurological unit of Johnson & Johnson has made the move to buy pharmaceutical company Neuravi that is based in England. Not yet determined the market price, however, it will be one of the biggest deals since 2009.

• Novartis decided to elaborate experimental pharmaceutical composition for eye diseases, which belongs to the American biopharmaceutical company Lubris. The move gives the Swiss giant worldwide rights outside Europe.

• The Novartis signs a cooperation agreement with the company Parvus for the therapeutic treatment particularly diabetes Type 1 through nanomedicine.

• The medical technology company BD will buy C .R . Bard for 24 billion dollars. This market will strengthen the position of BD in the medical devices market.

• The Merck withdrew from activity in biosimilars withdrawing from the agreement with Fresenius that worth 670 million euros.

• Takeda Pharmaceutical collaborated with the Harrington Discovery Institute for to support on research for treatments for rare diseases.

• AstraZeneca works with on Pieris Pharmaceuticals in an amount of 2.1 billion dollars deal for the discovery of respiratory therapies.

• Novartis gained rights worldwide development and commercialization in an experimental drug developed by US biotechnology Conatus for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis

• In order to produce broad-spectrum antibiotics, the Swiss drugmaker Novartis, started manufacturing facilities costing 105 mil. Euro in n City Prevalje, Slovenia.

• Sanofi worked with Exscientia to discover and develop small molecules Bispecific facing diabetes and its comorbidities. According to the agreement, Sanofi will deliver EUR 250 million (USD 274 million) in exchange for small molecules that are designed to achieve two goals of glucose control, the NASH, weight management and other areas related to diabetics

• Takeda underscored Fei cooperation deal worth $ 100 million with Gamma-Delta Therapeutics, a biotech company with the intention to buy the company in the future.

• GlaxoSmithKline aims throughout the healthcare market after acquiring 10.3 million US dollars from Novartis.

• Next March, GlaxoSmithKline will have the opportunity to acquire a large share of Novartis. The UK drugmaker will get a bid of £ 8 billion ($ 10.3 billion) for the 36.5% share of the partner, according to the leading shareholders of The Sunday Times. The industry observers say that Novartis could use the additional capital to help finance a giant – the possible target is AstraZeneca. The acquisition of Novartis will give GSK control of major companies in the health sector on the planet. Meanwhile, the takeover ambitions could reshape the oncology setting. While the company based in Basel has much to do in oncology, has no first-line immunotherapy program and AstraZeneca has shown some significant progress in the last two weeks with the initial approval of Imfinzi (durvalumab), which could give a spectacular boost in the market.

• Astellas completes acquisition of 800 million biotech from Ogeda. The Belgian biotechnology is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Astellas and extends the drain of the last phase of the operation.

• Novartis and IBM Watson companies announced that starting cooperation in order to improve the development of health of patients with advanced breast cancer. Utilizing medical data from thousands of people, both companies aspire to improve the care provided to patients. IBM Watson is one of the IBM supercomputer with artificial intelligence. IBM has invested a sizable amount of money in the development of Watson and wants to find a successful use. It seems that the medicine is one area where the IBM Watson can find interesting applications and to facilitate overall medical work. On the other hand, oncology is one of Novartis specificity domain, specifically after the acquisition of the oncology department of GSK. Company specializes among other things in the treatment of breast cancer, melanoma, kidney, and lung cancer. Meanwhile, it is a leader in hematology and treatment of diseases, such as leukemia and lymphomas.

• The companies Novartis and Bristol-Myers Squibb signed a clinical, research agreement to investigate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of the combination of two oncology drugs.

• Pfizer has signed an agreement with the Swiss pharmaceutical company BasileaPharmaceutica for exclusive rights to sell the anti-fungal medication Cresembla in Europe, Russia and Israel.

• Sanofi activates Tai to produce organic products investing 2bn Dollars.

LAYOFFS IN MULTINATIONALS

• Acorda Therapeutics cuts 20% of its staff (100 employees).

• Teva waive the plant sterile injectable substances in Godollo Hungary, which stopped production last year after the FDA found construction deficiencies. The generic manufacturer eliminates hundreds of employees in the coming months and will sell or close the plant by the end of next year.

• Novartis, announced on May 2017 that it plans to make 500 redundancies in traditional production positions, coordination and development in the Basel region next year adding 350 high-tech positions in the “development and innovative organic production.”

• Novartis is dealing with 250 positions in the USA for data process after their will to integrate all positions in data management in India.

BASIC CONCLUSIONS

What is hiding behind the controversy about Drugs?

The government is implementing new anti-people measures relating to the purchase of the drug. The promoted package of changes announced, amongst other include additional “filters” for introducing “innovative” drugs on the positive list (medicines that social security compensates), for which patients already pay much, in order to reduce the expense of the state and insurance funds.

Recall that closed budgets for public pharmaceutical expenditure is already defined. This means that for every new drug that is inserted in the positive list equal value drugs will be removed for whichpatients will fully pay in order not to increase public expenditure.

This measure is not new. During the previous years have been implemented and were thrown out of the positive list dozens of consumer medicines, which were classified as non-prescription drugs (OTC) or General Distribution Drugs (GEDIFA) for which patients pay 100% of the price.

At the same time, decisions of previous governments, which are maintained by the current one, have introduced the so-called “insurance value” (according to which insurances compensate), that drastically reduced the costs of the government and social security funds for the medicines of the positive list, but increased the costs for the patients as the pay the differential value from the one the drug is sold.

Moreover, the package of measures announced, include the promotion of generic prescribing targets by percentage per physician combined with incorporation of mandatory treatment protocols.

All these reflect the heightened confrontation between segments of the pharmaceutical industry about who will ensure greater profitability, demanding larger shares in the “pie” of the pharmaceutical market in the territory of competition triggered by the reduction of public expenditure for the drug.

These measures taken led – according to the estimates of even the scientists themselves and their institutions – thousands of patients to interrupt their treatment because they cannot pay for very expensive drugs.

To cover this issue, the government propagates the so-called “counter-measures” in order to cultivate a climate of tolerance and expectation to the lower strata. Measures and “countermeasures” are in favor of capital and pharmaceutical companies. Plus, it cannot be obscured, nor hide the fact that the patients will continue to pay gold for their health and medicine, even if you provide some small benefits like those advertised by the government.

All the above constitute a package of measures to strengthen competitiveness in the field of production and marketing of the drug. Since the drug is a commodity and factories together with the research results are property of the pharmaceuticals, what defines all steps, in any form that are promoted, is the promotion of their interests at the expense of the people needs.

Therefore the working class and the popular strata must organize their struggle and strengthen their alliance, claiming free Medication without payment, no cuts, no ceiling, only on scientific criteria and not on the basis of cost – benefit.

OEFSEE

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF WORKERS

IN PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY OF GREECE