Big pharma artificially manipulating drug availability

June 25, 2015
Written by E.Tsiliopoulos

Big multinational pharmaceutical companies are engineering artificial shortages of drugs in Greece by arbitrarily adopting "ceilings" for drugs sold per pharmacy and demanding personal data on customers and patients, the Pharmaceutical Developmental Institute of Greece (FANIE) asserted on Wednesday.

FANIE claimed the practice extended to vital medication - such as insulin, drugs for serious psychiatric disorders or injections for the management of osteoporosis and prostate ailments - creating serious risks for patients' lives.

According to the institute, the problems created by some multinational firms concerning the availability of their products had recently become more acute, while it accused them of arbitrarily "deciding" via their employees whether or not to sell their products and imposing supply 'ceilings' well below the demand of pharmacies and patients. This forced pharmacies to only partially fill prescriptions since they were unable to secure the quantities and range of drugs required by patients.

At the same time, pharmaceutical firms were demanding that pharmacies provide personal data on patients in order to supply them with drugs, violating laws on the provision of personal information and data, FANIE said.

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