http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904491704576574791877220786.html
Most of us are probably aware of the tough recession that has hit the global economy over the past few years and about how a lot of countries are still struggling to reboost their.
Greece is a perfect example of a country that has recently required to be rescued from its slumping economic recession by countries in the Eurozone. The financial rescue of Greece consists of a total of $157,000 million from governments of these countries and a further 50,000 euros from private sector businesses by 2014.
The deplorable state of the Greek economy has greatly affected the pharmaceutical industry in this country; especially as Greece has a great majority of state-funded hospitals. State-funded businesses's main purpose is to provide a service for the community and not to make a profit, which is one of the factors that has led the Swiss company 'Roche Holding AG' to stop delivering some of its pharmaceutical products to Greek hospitals.
In this article, Jeanne Whalen states how Roche has started selling their drugs for cancer treatment and other deseases, directly to pharmacies instead of selling to hospitals. Roche's CEO, Severin Schwan says, "Patients at some hospitals now must take their prescriptions to a local pharmacy, and, in the case of intravenous or injected cancer drugs, bring them back to the hospital to be administered."
The reason for Roche doing this is, says a spokeswoman from Roche in the article, is because, "Greek hospitals and pharmacies generally pay Roche directly for drugs, and then seek reimbursement from the taxpayer-funded health-care system. Pharmacies are perhaps more prompt in paying Roche because they are privately owned and run for a profit, giving them better cash flow to cover their bills."
Roche is not the only company that has been having problems with Greece and the viability of their pharmaceutical payments. The Norweigan company Novo Nordisk S/A also cut the supply of certain brands of insulin in Greece for a period of time due to the lack of profit they were making.
Other countries with state-funded hospitals, such as Spain, Italy and Portugal may also be risking this situation as many of them have fallen behind on their payments to companies in this industry.
This article is so interesting because it not only has to do with the pharmaceutical industry but also the government of Greece and how it is failing its people medically. Many countries have government run hospitals and if a financial crisis were to happen like this in any other country the same thing could happen. It is very interesting to think about.
ReplyDeleteYes I thought so too, thats why I thought it would be great to include in our project. It especially affected to know that back home, in Spain, we might have similar consequences if the recession does not improve.
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