Thought Leaders
Improving the Efficiency of the Healthcare and Pharma Budget
O Pascal Apostolides Managing Director, AbbVie Pharmaceuticals SA and SfEE Vice President
ver the last few years, the Greek state realized the need for rationalization of health expenditure, and has therefore taken certain measures towards this direction. However, up to now has been focusing, almost exclusively, on pharmaceutical expenses. The numbers are unquestionable. Through continuous changes, primarily limited to pricing method and the horizontal reduction of medicine prices, public outpatient pharma expenditure has decreased in the last four years more than 50% or else by approximately €3 billion. Based on current forecasts, in 2014 we will return to the spending levels of 2003 (approx. € 2B). No other industry associated with the public sector has undergone such reductions in the years of the Memorandum. Nevertheless, we should always bear in mind that health expenditures are not only related with the price of innovative medicines, which in Greece’s case are among the lowest in Europe. Additionally, regarding the access to these medicines, we shouldn’t forget that no new innovative drugs have been approved since the end of 2010; in other words, for more than 2 ½ years. Something that is less spoken about, is that only 20% of health expenditure has to do with the medicines while the remaining 80% is related to other health providers. And there, little to no cost cutting has been implemented; on the contrary, according to the Foundation for Economic & Industrial Research (IOBE) and ESY.net of Ministry of Health, spending on outsourcing and other liabilities increased by 318,8% during the period 2009-2011.
28 | BUSINESS PARTNERS | MAY-JUNE 2013
In other words, if we want to achieve actual results in the area of health, there are opportunities for the Greek government to rationalize costs on all other cost centers of health, too (hospital materials, medical examinations and the like). An example of how this could be implemented is the UNIPART project, concerning the optimiza-
Medicines are part of the solution of the equation in health care and not the problem
tion and cost reduction of RIO University Hospital. AbbVie along with some other companies (Amgen, Genesis Pharma, Gilead, Novartis and others) is assisting and funding the Hospital in their effort to improve control, reduce inventory cost and free up nursing time through restructuring of the Hospital’s supply chain. Already, operating costs have been reduced by 20% in two parts of the hospital (Hemodynamic and Interventional Radiology) whereas, the Hospital’s employees have reduced inventory through better control,