THE INTERVIEW
Healthcare Reform— A Holistic Approach
Katerina Karella, President and Managing Director of Pfizer Hellas, advocates a holistic approach to Healthcare reform, to ensure patient access and quality healthcare for all. Mrs. Karella is also Vice President of SFEE, where she is Chair of the Committee on Issues Related to the Ministry of Health (MoH); is a member of the BoD of the Chamber and Chair of the Chamber’s Pharma Committee; and is Chair of PhRMA lawg. What would you say are the three major issues that the Pharmaceutical Industry faces today? In an era of austerity, where the economic crisis and the subsequent recession adds pressure to the State to cut spending, the need to further develop a nurturing partnership between the State and the Industry becomes all the more important. We are mindful of what the State does with the resources it has but we feel there are a number of issues we, as an Industry face today. If I were to pinpoint three I’d have to say that: Looking at the data we have to date, one notices that we actually have very low medicine prices in Greece (due to the enlarged basket of 22 reference EU countries). Unfortunately, this can dramatically disrupt patient access and could discourage the introduction of new innovative medicines. A side effect is product shortages due to incremental parallel trade, where our products
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are sold outside our borders. On a second note, the current legislated criteria for the positive reimbursement list, which violate the current legislation, are exploitative and subjective. The State is attempting to implement a list focused only on financial criteria, ignoring the scientific evidence and the added value a medicine can offer. Product prices should be further reduced to lower levels that the current law dictates, in order to be included in the reimbursement. This may lead to the exclusion of a series of life saving medicines from the list which may again, lead to a decrease in access to patients who need them. Finally, another serious issue is the combination of a complex, unclear and constantly changing tax system, with increased or one-off extra taxes, which acts as an impediment to business planning and—as a result—could deter multinational companies from further investing in Greece. Would you say that, as an industry, you are supportive of the State’s attempts to reduce the healthcare spending? We agree that there is room for savings with regards to public spending in the health sector. However, we need to take a holistic approach to the overall health