2024-01-22 14:17:51
After the claim of the business chambers of the sector, the Argentine Pharmaceutical Confederation (COFA) and the National Academy of Medicine itself, the Government modified the articles of the Mega Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) deregulator of the Economy that prevented health workers suggest trademarks when prescribing medications and introduced changes in the sale of remedies in stores that they are not pharmacies.
The regulations were published in the Official Gazette through Decree 63/2024, and corresponds to the articles 266, 310, 313 y 323 of the norm that the president had signed Javier Miley at the end of last December. In this way, doctors will continue to be obliged to tell the patient the generic name or name of the drug, but they may recommend that it be from a particular laboratory.
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The modification also indicates that if the electronic prescriptionthe pharmacist “must return the information to the acting professional in case of substitution in pharmacy” of the medication in question, “to preserve adequate monitoring of the patient’s clinical treatment.”
Along these lines, a fact that was already happening in practice was whitewashed and has to do with the fact that the patient has the right to “replace it with a lower priced medicinal specialty that contains the same active principlesconcentration, pharmaceutical form and similar number of units as prescribed,” according to the document.
The Executive Branch decided to reverse these modifications after a complaint from the National Academy of Medicine and 48 other medical entities. From the sector they highlighted in Argentina there is no bioequivalence procedureso the same level of efficacy and safety cannot be guaranteed between both drugs (the generic and the so-called madre).
Even the COFA had presented a appeal for protection before Justice to stop this chapter of the DNU and had held a protest with slogans such as “Your trusted pharmacy is in danger” and “Safe medications, only in pharmacies.”
Medications: Other changes in Milei’s DNU
Another point that appeared in the DNU was the possibility that so-called over-the-counter and pharmaceutical specialty medications could be sold outside of pharmacies. This had been one of the most controversial issues and although it will be allowed to sell remedies to establishments not authorized as pharmacis, it will be limited “to antacids and pain relievers”.
These places, according to the decree that was known this Monday, must “have a space to store medicinal specialties, separate and independent of other products sold by the establishment, kept under lock and key and that meets the conditions of hygiene, safety, cleanliness, spaciousness, light and adequate ventilation.
Health in the DNU of Javier Milei: power for patients, electronic prescription and sales from drugstores
One of the arguments on this point stated that the health checks on medicines by increasing the number of outlets and, according to pharmacists, it would make it more difficult remove the lot from the market in case of any problem in the game.
In addition, it was stated that the recipes must be available exclusively digitally starting July 1, 2024. The same will have to be done through the digital recipes prepared and signed on authorized electronic platforms.
Meanwhile, another modification of the Mega DNU was that it enabled the drugstores a sell medicines directly to the public. Currently, this alternative was stipulated only for recipes that prescribe oncological drugs or for special treatments listed by the enforcement authority.
FP/fl
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