New law to curb drugs cost

2003-04-02 23:52

Cape Town - Legislation designed to help check the spiralling cost of medicines will come into force next month, director general of health Ayanda Ntsaluba said on Wednesday.

Changes to the medicines control law will force pharmacists to offer cheaper generic substitutes for prescription drugs.

They will also set up a committee to oversee the establishment of a transparent medicine pricing system, eliminate the "perverse incentives" that drug companies offer doctors to use their products, permit parallel imports and pave the way for licensing of dispensing doctors.

Parallel imports are drugs sourced from a non-South African division of a particular manufacturer, at a cheaper price than the manufacturer offers in this country.

An amendment to the Pharmacy Act, to come into force on the same day, will for the first time allow non-pharmacists to own pharmacies.

The Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act was passed by Parliament in 1997, but was challenged by the pharmaceutical industry before it came into effect.

Both the act, plus amendments to correct "ambiguities" identified in it, and a set of regulations, would come into force on May 2, Ntsaluba said.

He said the act would force manufacturers to sell medicines at a single exit price, which they would set, and eliminate wholesale and retail markups.

Fix charges

Instead, the pricing committee would fix charges - a wholesale fee for the distributor, and a professional fee for the pharmacist.

This fee would probably take effect in September or October.

The licensing of dispensing doctors would come into force from May next year, to allow them time to apply and to undergo a training course.

Ntsaluba said the act also provided that the Medicines Control Council should be reconstituted within six months of the law coming into force.

This would happen, but the need for change was less pressing now than when the law was passed in 1997 and the MCC was "totally not representative".

A change to patent legislation would bring in the so-called "bolar provision" which would allow generic manufacturers to register their version of a patented product well before that patent lapsed, so that they were able to start producing the day it ended.

Another change was an attempt to streamline the legislation's "cumbersome" provisions on compulsory licensing.

- SAPA