4.06 Discounts should be abolished
Discounts between producer and pharmacy place the consumers in an unfortunate situation. If pharmacies favour certain pharmaceuticals with discounts over other alternatives, the consumers will not get the independent advice, they have a right to.
According to current legislation, cost-linked discounts are permissible. In this way, wholesalers have a possibility of changing the purchasing behaviour of the pharmacies by offering discounts through cost reduction in previous links of the distribution chain. Experience shows that by an large it is impossible to delimit cost-linked discounts from marketing discounts.
Under the present system with cost-linked discounts, only about half of the discounts obtained benefit the users and the health insurance system through reductions in pharmacy profits. The other half remain in the pharmacy sector.
The discounts given by manufacturers thus have a limited effect on the price of medicines. As the system is designed, the effect is not on the price of the particular product, but instead on the price level generally through reductions in pharmacy profits.
The price reductions ought, in Lif’s opinion, to apply directly to those products on which the reductions are made.
Lif believes:
- that discounts to pharmacists should be abolished, as price reductions would then directly benefit users and public funds,
- that the principle of cost-linked discounts is not appropriate,
- that safeguarding the mutual independence of the parties should be regarded as crucially important and that that can only be ensured by abolishing the possibility of discounts.
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