The president of the EOF, Dimitris Filippou, “foresees” the normalization of the drug market in the next ten days, as he stated on ERT channel on Monday.

Speaking about the list of 161 medicines that are in short supply on the Greek market, Mr. Filippou stated that it is a perennial problem which is particularly acute in Europe, more so than in Greece, while regarding the concern that was created, he commented that “we’ve gone a bit overboard these days”.

According to the president of the National Medicines Organization, at EOF they did not wait for the phenomenon to manifest itself before starting to deal with it, but for three years they have taken relevant actions.

Regarding the list of medical preparations that are in short supply for various reasons, he emphasized that “it concerns chronic patients and is mostly anti-diabetic drugs, anti-epileptics, psychotropic drugs, which are in short supply due to disruption of global production”. Regarding the inhalants in which most of the shortages were reported, he revealed that large quantities were released from pharmaceutical warehouses and will soon be available to patients.

Generics will help solve the problem

Speaking about the widely used drugs that were in short supply during the holidays, he said that the problem is being addressed.

“In Greece, we have a strong pharmaceutical industry which, with generics, has covered to a very significant extent the needs for first aid medicines, those that the patient goes to get from the pharmacy himself”, he said in this regard.

Speaking about the oncology drugs, he emphasized that in cooperation with the pharmaceutical industry since 2019 we have succeeded in bringing the production to Greece. “So this year countries like Germany and France may have oncological medicine problems, we don’t,” he said.

Controls in pharmacies

Regarding the ban on exports of several preparations, Mr. Filippou clarified that “the EOF issued a very large ban, very strong, the strongest it has issued and mentions 260 codes”. He added, in fact, that checks have also been carried out on the pharmaceutical warehouses, the pharmacies and the companies that supply them, as a result they have now begun to be grouped, not completely, with 5% to 10% of those in short supply to return to the pharmacy shelves in first fortnight of January.

“The checks we have done are to ensure that they do not store drugs in order to export them. Now there are pharmaceutical warehouses of various kinds and different modes of operation. Each pharmaceutical warehouse can also have a small stock to be able to serve the pharmacies it cooperates with in some acute situations”, added the president of the EOF.

With regard to the two pharmacies whose operations were suspended due to refusal of checks by EOF levels, he emphasized that they did not belong to any association but were autonomous private individuals. As long as misdemeanors are found that endanger public health, we proceed to revoke the license”, asserted Mr. Filippou

What he said about generics

When asked about generic drugs, the president of the EOF and the concern that exists among the population, Mr. Filippou pointed out that “they will help to solve the problem in specific codes. People need to understand that a drug once licensed has exactly the same safety and efficacy profile as its counterpart. Otherwise it would not be able to get permission to circulate”

He argued that “the use of generic names has not yet passed into our culture, as in other countries such as Germany.

In addition, he pointed out that for a specific category of preparations the active substances will be prescribed.

“The substance heals, not the label,” he added. Regarding drug prices and the announced increases in cheap drugs, he stated that this “is a practice that has been implemented in 2020 where we again had drugs whose price was lower than their production costs”, which resulted in the companies proceed with their recall.

Very large amounts of inhalants have been released

He wanted to reassure people by saying that there is no problem of lack of medicines but of limited availability.

“Things are not so tragic. A lack of signifies that wherever I go I won’t find it. This happened because there was a very large increase in demand due to the viruses and there was also a limitation of the market, as always happens during the last days of the year. From today, therefore, when they have all returned to the supply chain and especially as concerns inhalants about which there has been a lot of talk, very large quantities have been released” said Mr. Filippou stressing that any problems will be smoothed out.

With reference to the list of drugs that are in short supply, Mr. Filippou emphasized that “when there is no exact corresponding (preparation), there is an equivalent that can be exchanged. For this reason, EOF updates the data. We have drawn up a list of these medicines, which the patient cannot buy on his own, but will have to get them with a prescription, which will be posted on the organization’s website and will provide a solution to possible problems that may arise”.