There are more than 130 drugs with suspended exportation in Portugal

The measure taken by Infarmed aims to prevent ruptures, but the Portuguese Association of Importers and Exporters of Medicines guarantees that the problem is different.

In January, there were 110 medicines whose export was banned. The following month, the list increased and are now 137. The Infarmed measure serves to prevent disruptions but is criticized by the association that represents exporters and importers.

“It has an underlying problem, it is an ineffective measure, for the simple reason: you cannot export what does not exist. If the product is not available in the market, it doesn’t exist. It is an innocuous measure, it makes no sense,” said António Mendonça Alves, president of the Portuguese Association of Importers and Exporters of Medicines (APIEM), in Parliament.

APIEM speaks of an isolated measure without any practical effect to guarantee national supply and also points the finger at the big pharmaceutical companies that, said the responsible, “do not like to see other products in some markets, from Portugal or other countries, that compete with their products.

“What we do is price competition, [but] that way they can, in essence, defend their monopoly position in those markets,” said António Mendonça Alves.

When questioned by the deputy Pedro Frazão, from Chega, about why ” Infarmed did not accept” the proposal they made in 2021 for the creation of an emergency import mechanism for medicines in shortage, the president of APIEM revealed that “the first reactions were always in the sense of creating some regulatory obstacles”.

“There was a fear that there was going to be an uncontrolled importation of products without Infarmed knowing what was going on,” he said.

Problems of territorial cohesion were also identified, especially in the interior of the country, so, argued António Mendonça Alves, “it is necessary to identify the pharmacies that are reporting the shortages so that the distributors, who have availability, can make these supplies, even if they are in another municipality, another district or another part of the country.

As for the viability of manufacturing and price hikes, the stresses that prices are agreed upon and there are legal obligations to be met. “Nobody is forced to sell a drug to Portugal. The price that is reached, whether you like the calculation formula or not, is a price that is established and from the moment that you accept that price you have a legal obligation to make the product arrive,” he maintained.

Arguments aside, what is certain is that drugs up to 10 euros have recently seen their price increase by 5%, and those costing between 10 and 15 euros have risen by 2%.

There are more than 130 drugs with suspended exportation in Portugal

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