ROMA (ITALPRESS) – “From 2016 to 2024 the introduction of equivalent medicines and biosimilars has led to a savings for the state’s coffers of approximately €7.4 billion”. This is said by the president of Egualia, Riccardo Zagaria, in an interview with Claudio Brachino for the television magazine Italpress Economy.
Egualia is the association that gathers about 70 companies dealing with equivalent drugs, so-called generics, biosimilars and value added medicines. “This is about 11,000 workers in Italy. So we not only bring savings to the National Health Service, but also create employment and added value. It is estimated approximately 6.4 billion euros of value of the production, of which 2,2 billion export. We are an important part of the pharmaceutical world,” Zagaria recalls, underlining how Covid has “clear how important it is to have those who produce the drug near home, this is a chain that must be supported”.
“Our enterprises produce savings” for the state’s coffers, but “to produce savings, there is a need for a minimum of marginality to remain. We do business and we are aware of the social role we have. My mandate is to develop and make the presence of the equivalent drug even more important in Italy”, explains Egualia’s president, who adds: “Today Italy at European level is a bit the tail light for the penetration of the equivalent drug. There is a cultural problem, but also economic: according to the latest OsMed report, more than a billion euros each year is paid directly by citizens as a price differential to choose a branded drug, while being available an equivalent entirely reimbursed by the National Health Service. So my mandate is to increase the awareness and awareness of citizens towards this sector and that the industrial sector can hold up to the challenges of sustainability.”
On the front of biosimilar drugs the situation is different, also thanks to the law 232 of 2016, a measure that “worked – Zagaria emphasizes -. On biosimilare today Italy in terms of penetration is ahead of all other European partners. Law 232 of 2016 introduced a mechanism that allows the doctor to choose the most appropriate drug between the originalator and the biosimilare regarding the treatment and therapeutic continuity of the patient. In the next 5 or 6 years we will see the marketing of about thirty new biosimilar drugs. The law works, the problem is the regional implementation, which works a bit on leopard spot.”
A rule that, according to Egualia, needs to be modified is the one concerning the payback, that “was born as an emergency measure and in fact has turned over the years into a systemic measure that goes absolutely to the detriment of the marginality of the companies, especially of our sector”. The president of the association of category proposes to “discorporate from the calculation of the payback the companies that participate in the races to the maximum low, would be a intervention of common sense and justice”.
– Photo Italpress –
(ITALPRESS).
