The drug prices increased in the last three months more than 100% and such an increase was reflected in purchases, which fell 18.2% in January compared to the same period last year, according to the report from the Center of Argentine Pharmaceutical Professionals (CEPROFAR).
While, If the sales of October 2023 are compared to those of January 2024, the purchase decrease reaches 26%.
The magnitude of the monthly decline in January has no priorsaccording to the director of CEPROFAR, Ruben Sajem. The closest falls are the annual drop in 2018 (-4%), due to the discovery of PAMI in different medications, and that in 2019 (-5%) -both during the government of Mauricio Macri-, but “a decline of such magnitude has never been seen,” about 18% monthly, said Sajem.
This panorama “we have been noticing because when people ask prices, they don’t buy or waiteven if you have a prescription for three medications, buy two or reduce the sizes, order by blister and pay as you can: with cash, with the rest of a debit card and complete it with a credit card, which pharmacy accepts it in installments, but everything has a limit,” said the director of CEPROFAR.
Drug prices increased more than 110% in the Milei era
The price agreements carried out by the previous government ended on October 31 and this drove the price of medicines to grow above inflation in the last three months, while the consumer price index (CPI) was almost 70% (from November to January) the increase in medications was 111.9%.
The report highlights that “Although the price agreements were voluntary, they implied price regulation”for this reason, at the end of it, prices skyrocketed more than 40 points above inflation.
During 2023, the medicines increased their prices by 319.1%particularly due to the strong increases observed in the last two months of the year. This value was well above the accumulated annual inflation of 2023, which was 211.4%.
Income drop
For a typical family it becomes almost impossible to buy a medicine when observing the successive food increases in front of the wages who suffered a severe setback in recent months. Something similar happens with the retirements and pensions that since December they have not had increases and observed a very large drop in purchasing power.
The Salaries suffered their worst decline in December since the convertibility crisis, when in 2002 they fell 9.6%, but the figure for the last month of 2023 was much higher and was close to 14%. Looking ahead to January, the outlook was not much more auspicious and the different analysts agreed that it was not going to beat the inflation.
Meanwhile, the retirements and pensions They also suffered a immense purchasing power drop facing an inflation that did not stop growing, while the assets did not vary, since the bonds were updated and the minimum assets remained at $160,000.
The medications that increased the most
The report also points out that there are large differences in the prices of the same drug, but of different brands that are widely used, such as omeprazole (antiulcer), losartan (antihypertensive), paracetamol (analgesic), ibuprofen (analgesic), salbutamol (bronchodilator), enalapril (antihypertensive), among others.
“This is explained by the low compliance and poor dissemination of law 25,649 of prescription by generic name and by the inclusion of commercial brands in prescriptions, in favor of more expensive brands, without foundation,” the report warns.
Source: Ambito
