Half of Romania’s pharmaceutical production is exported

Romania’s total medicine exports reached approximately 1.25 billion euros last year, while domestic production was nearly 800 million euros, according to Dan Zaharescu, executive director of the Romanian Association of International Manufacturers of Medicines (ARPIM).

Apparently, the low price of medicines existing in Romania makes medicine wholesalers buy them from the domestic market and resell them in countries where the prices are higher, thus obtaining a profit.

“We have a free market in the European Union for medicines, or this situation generates some particularities for the pharmaceutical market in Romania, which are important and are one of the sources that generate the disappearance of medicines in Romania. The low price in Romania, as I said, set at minimum European level, it becomes tempting for drug wholesalers who are tempted to buy these drugs in markets where the prices are much higher. Such a phenomenon is officially known as intra-community trade. It basically distorts the pharmaceutical market from Romania, because there are significant quantities of drugs that leave Romania and are sold on these markets, at the expense of Romanian patients. Last year, the total number of drug exports, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics, was around 1 .25 billion euros and, if we gather all the data related to the domestic production of medicines, we reach somewhere around 800 million euros. So, if all the production of medicines in Romania were exported, we would still not reach the figure of 1.25 billion, which represents the level of exports from Romania”, said the ARPIM representative.

ARPIM estimates show that approximately half of domestic production remains in Romania and the other half is exported.

“So, the level of parallel trade in medicines or intra-community trade is about 800 million euros in a market (local – n.r.) which at the producer price level is about 6.2 billion euros, so somewhere around 15 – 17% of the total pharmaceutical market is represented by drugs that come out of Romania and that affect patients’ access to drugs,” Zaharescu explained.

He pointed out that this situation puts drug manufacturers in a difficult position, because they lose twice. On the one hand, they are obliged to bring the medicines to Romania for the Romanian patients, but, because of this re-export of the medicines by the traders, the producers lose, because the products are sold on markets where the prices are higher, but the revenues go from fact at these drug wholesalers. On the other hand, the medicine manufacturer must cover the gap that occurred in Romania with additional quantities.