Drugs: new price increases exaggerated | Ya Yazid more

The year 2023 also brought a wave of drug price increases. Hundreds of widely consumed medicines are at risk of being inaccessible to those who are forced to take them.

As if skyrocketing prices for fuels, energy raw materials and food products weren’t already enough, 2023 ushered in another wave of drug price increases. not a lustful good, then, or one which you can do without with some sacrifice. The price increases – and not a little – for hundreds of widely consumed drugs: from patches to birth control pills, from anxiolytics to anti-inflammatoriesranging from 5 to 15 percent.

Prices of over-the-counter medicines and medical devices have skyrocketed The differences are significant if you buy it in a pharmacy or, say, in a large retail pharmacy’s corner. A big problem is the millions of Italians who go to a pharmacy every day to buy essential over-the-counter medicines, nutritional supplements or medical devices and find themselves having to pay more.

If the cost of living does not spare even medicines

The upward “revision” was established by law: “Written by the ‘Storas Decree’ of 2005: The price of Class C drugs can be increased in January of each odd year“, justifies Pierluigi Annis, President of Federfarma Sardegna. He describes the mechanism of price increases when prices rise: “Companies increase their selling prices and therefore we pharmacists are also forced to apply the increase. The average, since January, has been around 10%.”

And “If the price of symptomatic drugs goes up, that is The ones that are only taken in case of symptoms, so once in a while, they have relatively little impact on budgets Of the families, ”Annis points out again,“ the situation is very different for those who suffer from chronic diseases and are forced to take medications constantly, and therefore the increases, month after month, can weigh a lot.”

But there are those who point the finger at a real person The “monopoly” espoused by nearly 19,000 private pharmacies, bolstered by the exclusive sale of prescription drugs, has continued through good times and bad times. Also on other related products. A possible solution is to order medicines online in one of the many digital pharmacies duly authorized and certified: in this case discounts, even for over-the-counter medicines, can reach 28% compared to those offered in traditional pharmacies. But there is often no time and/or possibility to do so.