Romanian Competition Council: Doctors recommend expensive drugs

Doctors prescribe expensive drugs and direct patients only to certain pharmacies, influenced by the marketing budgets of the companies in this field, a study carried out by Romania’s Competition Council on the pharma market reveals. Generic drugs fail to reach a significant market share several years after entering the market, although they are at least 35% cheaper than their innovative versions. Some 57% of the patients ask for a certain drug based on the doctor’s recommendation. In Romania, theoretically, doctors should prescribe the active substance, and only in exceptional situations, they should give the commercial name. An innovative pharma producer allocates on average 9% of its turnover for promotional activities whereas a producer of generic drugs allocates about 5%, according to the Competition Council. Pharmaceutical companies spent about EUR 80.1 million on drug promotion in 2014. editor@romania-insider.com