Italy to restart pharma investment incentives
The head of Italy's medicines agency has said that a pharma incentives programme is to be restarted in October.
The head of Italy's medicines agency has said that a pharma incentives programme is to be restarted in October.
Nello Martini, the director general of the medicines regulator, AIFA, said that a committee has been appointed and will be ready in October to consider presentations from all pharma companies about their investment programmes.
According to Italian news agency ADNKronos, there are Euro 100m available from the 2007 budget to be used for incentives for companies investing in Italy. Companies will be graded according to the amount and type of investment they plan to make and the resources allocated accordingly.
Martini wants the incentives programme to be continued next year. "We hope, and AIFA has made such a proposal, that in the next budget funds will be set aside again for programmed investment agreements," he is reported as saying.
The new deal for pharma companies follows sustained falls in drugs spending by the national health service in 2007. The pharmacies body, Federfarma, has reported that drugs expenditure fell by 5.4% in July despite a 9.4% rise in prescriptions. In the first seven months of the year expenditure has been 8.9% lower than the same period in 2006.
The AIFA chief has also requested that the government set aside any savings for the national health service that result from increased use of generic drugs. He wants the resources to be allocated in the next budget so that they can be used to reimburse innovative, new drugs.
Generic drugs are now said to account for 13% of the Italian market.