Chairman Wilbert Bannenberg of the foundation is disappointed. “We are considering further steps.”
The case revolves around the fundamental question: Is there a limit to the price that a medicine manufacturer may request for a medicine? Farma Foundation for accountability believes that that limit should be there and therefore has been aware of the Pharmaceutist Abbvie because it has earned a lot of money with his means against Rheumana Humira for years.
Billions
Humira was the best -selling medicine in the Netherlands for years and the most profitable. Between 2004 and 2018, producer Abbvie – which operates in more than 175 countries and has his head office in Chicago – no less than 2.1 billion euros at the means.
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According to the Farma Foundation for accountability, an exorbitantly high amount of which a large part of profits. “Because of this, other care has been repressed,” said Wilbert Bannenberg, chairman of the foundation about this earlier against De Telegraaf. “With this money, thousands of Dutch people could have lived an extra year in good health.”
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The pharmaceutical company has not violated rules by asking a high price for his medicine Humira, which is not only used for the treatment of rheumatism, but also for other inflammatory diseases such as Crohn’s disease.
Position position
If a new medicine comes on the market, there is usually a patent on it, so that other manufacturers are not allowed to imitate the medicine. As long as the patent runs, the pharmaceuticalist can ask for a high price.
And Abbvie did that. The lawsuit against pharmaceutical ABVIE is therefore a fundamental: according to Stichting Farma to accountability, Abbvie has abused his dominant position and requested excessively high prices.
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In 2018, the patent on Humira went, so that other manufacturers were also allowed to make the rheumatic tool. As a result, the price of ABBVIE fell enormously: in 2023 the price had fallen by almost 90 percent.
According to the Farma Foundation, this price decrease proves to be accountable for Humira to be unnecessarily expensive for years.
Make failures
But the Innovative Medicines Association (VIG), trade association of pharmacists, emphasizes time and again that the development of medicines is a precious process in which a lot of money is invested, while only a limited part of the developments actually leads to a means that comes on the market. With resources that do come on the market, the costs of all failures must therefore also be made up for, the VIG explained earlier.
And that is also the core of the defense of pharmaceutical ABVIE in this lawsuit.
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Bannenberg acknowledges that development costs must also be earned back. “And on top of that, a profit may also be made.” But the question that the foundation has asked to the court is ‘to what extent pharmaceutical companies may be completely free to determine the prices of their medicines’.
An answer from the judge to this is therefore not for the time being.
More often unnecessarily high prices
The high medicine prices are more and more the subject of discussion. The Healthcare Institute, which assesses whether medicines can be reimbursed by the health insurer, came to the beginning of June with a report that signales that pharmaceuticals more often request a high price for expensive medicines for a long time.
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Earlier, in April, the Dutch Healthcare Authority came up with the advice to ‘offer no more than necessary competitive protection to pharmaceuticals’. The NZa found that it ‘takes a long time before competition is created, so that society pays a high price for these medicines for a long time’.
Citizens also critical
The Dutch citizen is also skeptical about the high price of medicines, according to recent research by the Radboudumc. If a means demonstrably yields much health gain, improves the quality of life or ensures that someone can participate in society again, then Dutch people are willing to pay a high price for a medicine.
But if there is uncertainty about the effectiveness or safety, or if the medicine is limited innovative, or if the price is considerably higher than in other countries, then the willingness to pay a high account is much less.