Spain's Ministry of Health has awarded the public tender of 20 medicines to supply various autonomous communities, the ministries of defence and the interior, and the National Institute of Health Management, which are part of the system of centralised medicine tenders.
IHS Life Sciences perspective | |
Significance | Spain's Ministry of Health has published a framework agreement awarding public tenders for 20 medicines. |
Implications | The agreement covers the public acquisition of the medicines, and domestic and international pharma companies have been awarded tenders as part of the centralised procurement. |
Outlook | Centralised purchasing of medicines aims to harmonise and reduce the cost across the autonomous communities and the other public institutions taking part. However, these mechanisms tend to mean lower prices and therefore less profits for the pharma companies. |
Spain's Ministry of Health (MoH) has published a framework agreement awarding public tenders of 20 medicines to supply various autonomous communities, the defence and interior ministries, and the National Institute of Health Management (INGESA), which are part of the system of centralised medicine tenders. The full contract can be accessed here in Spanish.
The agreement covers the public acquisition of 20 medicines: epoetin alfa, cisplatin, docetaxel, fludarabine, gemcitabine, irinotecan, oxaliplatin, paclitaxel, vinorelbine, methotrexate, lamivudine, acyclovir, filgrastim, paracetamol, granisetron, ondansetron, rocuronium, riluzole, omeprazole and pantoprazole.
Under the terms of the framework, the MoH has not specified the total budget allocated to this tender but specifies the individual price for each medicine.
Pharma companies awarded
The pharmaceutical company with the biggest awarded was Spain's Accord Healthcare, follow by Genéricos Españoles Laboratorio (GES; Spain). However, several international pharma companies will also take part in this procurement, including GlaxoSmithKline (GSK; UK), Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Cilag (US), Merck & Co (US), Pierre Fabre (France), Sanofi-Aventis (part of Sanofi, France), Sun Pharma (India), Teva (Israel), and Sandoz (part of Novartis, Switzerland).
Outlook and implications
This approval follows Spain's Ministry of Health policy of encouraging joint medicines procurement to enhance the efficiency and homogenisation of the National Health System, which has allowed regional governments and other public institutions taking part to reduce costs and simplify medicine tenders.
This framework agreement follows five new recently announced framework agreements to be incorporated into the centralised medicine tender system for four specific drugs and certain intraocular implants used in cataract operations worth EUR1.7 billion (USD1.9 billion; see Spain: 22 September 2015: Spain's Council of Ministers approves five agreements to award USD1.9 bil. on centralised medicine tenders).
Domestic and international pharma companies have been awarded tenders in this centralised procurement. Despite the fact that centralised tenders usually result in lower prices and therefore less profits for pharma companies, in this case, the mechanis tends to secure large volumes of sales as it is designed to supply several autonomous communities, government ministries, and INGESA.
Public tenders of medicine have achieved such a level of popularity that the MoH has proposed to implement national discount contract tenders that allow under specific exceptional circumstances the selection of certain active ingredients of a homogenous group to be put to a tender aiming to achieve a price discount of at least 10%, and the suspension from public reimbursement of any producers that do not win the tender (see Spain: 24 July 2015: Spain's MoH proposes national discount contract tenders as part of pricing regulation and Spain: 28 September 2015: Spain's MoH agrees substantial modifications on price-decree draft).
However, this proposal has been highly unpopular, not only among the autonomous communities, but also with the Spanish Generic Manufacturers' Association (AESEG), which recently voiced disagreement with the proposal (see Spain: 18 August 2015: Spain's AESEG disagrees with national discount contract tenders proposed by MoH).