Medication

The National Organization for Medicines (EOF) is restricting the availability of a drug commonly used to combat malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus following a spike in demand prompted by unconfirmed media reports that it can be effective against Covid-19.

The prices of the drugs which are sold without medical prescription will be regulated. This is envisaged by the Ministry of Health. The document has already been publicly discussed and is due to enter the Council of Ministers today.

The government on Tuesday announced plans to reduce the value-added tax on medicines and treatments used to fight cancer.

The changes have been submitted to Parliament in the form of a legal amendment by the Finance Ministry, in coordination with the Health Ministry, spokesman Stelios Petsas told a weekly press briefing in Athens.

The government on Tuesday announced plans to reduce the value-added tax on medicines and treatments used to fight cancer.

The changes have been submitted to Parliament in the form of a legal amendment by the Finance Ministry, in coordination with the Health Ministry, spokesman Stelios Petsas told a weekly press briefing in Athens.

Within hours of the owner of an advertising agency telling a Greek corruption prosecutor that he paid an unnamed representative of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis some 400,000 euros, the executive, Filistor Destempasidis, issued a statement rejecting the claims as "monstrous degeneracy" and pledged to take legal action.

Tax collection measures such as the rebate and clawback systems that prevent excessive state spending on pharmaceuticals are hindering the penetration of the Greek market by innovative drugs, says Bruno Wohlschlegel, head of Europe at the Merck Group.

Generic drugs may be gaining ground in Greece in recent years, especially as a result of state measures to rationalize expenditure in pharmaceuticals during the bailouts, but the market penetration target has yet to be reached.

A Thessaloniki appeals court has declared a former pharmaceuticals top manager and two doctors innocent of the crimes of bribery and bribe-taking, state run news agency ANA-MPA reported on Friday.

On 4th of October, anti-mafia teams entered the Hematological Hospital "John Paul" in Sofia and "St. Mina" in Blagoevgrad because of suspicion for abuse of medicines for treatmenet of cancer patients. Investigators checked how many sick people were admiitted to the hopitals, how many medicines were administered for the day and how many were actually used.

A police investigation into an international racket dealing in medicines, including expensive drugs for cancer treatment, believed to have cost the Greek state millions of euros, has shed light on the ring members' methods.