The Belgian health insurer Solidaris has stated that pharmaceutical companies make one billion euros in "super-profits" in Belgium on the back of the high cost of various medications in the country. Solidaris Secretary General Jean-Pascal Labille called the profits "outrageous" and argued that some medications cost "20 times the fair price."
The social health insurer calculated what the "fair and transparent" price of medications would be using the calculator created by the International Association of Mutuals. It found that for some drugs, the profit margins going to pharmaceutical companies is huge.
"We calculate that there are a billion euros of superprofits for pharmaceutical companies," Labille told Le Soir. "This poses an enormous barrier to the accessibility of drugs and more generally to health care."
The "fair price model" takes various factors into account, among them the cost of production, research and development, innovation and profit. Normally prices are decided following unpublicised negotiations between the producing companies and the Minister of Social Affairs. As a consequence, the cost of medicine can be vastly different to prices in other countries.
Solidaris hopes to integrate the calculator into the law as a reference for discussion during tariff negotiations.
David Gering, communication director of Pharma.be, justified the profits to RTBF, arguing that they are necessary for research and production. But Solidaris counters this line of reasoning, highlighting the need for a balance between profit and general accessibility. The present margins of profit indicate that medicines risk being prohibitively priced to the point that many won't be able to afford them.
