Pharmaceutical stocks fall as Turkey's drug pricing policy hits stocks

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Hulya Akpinar's pharmacy in Istanbul is virtually empty and patients seeking drugs for the treatment of hypertension and diabetes leave empty-handed.

For months, Akpinar said pharmacists all over the city had been facing a shortage of critical stocks because of the government's decision to keep prices that it was pouring into pharmaceutical companies for artificially low drugs.

"We call pharmaceutical warehouses several times a day to ask if they can deliver these drugs, but we can not find them," she told Reuters in her drugstore in the central district of Beijing. Istanbul, Sisli.

Drug shortages are a recurring problem in Turkey at the beginning of each year, when the government sets the exchange rate for all drug purchases. The state social security institution buys 90% of the drugs on the market, worth about 30 billion lire (5.75 billion dollars).

Just over half of the medicines in Turkey are imported and most locally manufactured medicines use imported raw materials, making the exchange rate a crucial cost factor.

This year, after the sharp depreciation of the Turkish lira, the shortages were even more glaring. The exchange rate for pharmaceuticals in 2018 was 2.69 lira per euro – barely half of the current market rate.

This year, the government, which is trying to limit spending, should only increase the rate by 15%. Pharmaceutical companies require a minimum of 35%.

Nezih Barut, president of the Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of Turkey (IEIS), said the drug manufacturers could not function properly if the government proposal was approved.

"In such a situation, the drugs would be untraceable, because as pharmaceutical companies, we have many difficulties, even with regard to the supply of raw materials," he said.

SHORTAGES OF DRUGS

Reuters spoke at 10 pharmacies in Istanbul this week. Nine said they did not have any common medications for high blood pressure or the flu. A pharmacy said that there was only one package.

Erdogan Colak, chairman of the Turkish Association of Pharmacists (TEB), said that 150 drugs were not available in the market in January, and Akpinar said it was particularly difficult to find drugs for cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes.

"These drugs are essential," Akpinar said. "Our customers come to ask for them, but they can not be found anywhere in medical providers. We call our other pharmacist friends to find them.

Last week, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca apparently blamed the pharmaceutical industry for the shortage, saying his ministry had determined that 42 producers, 20 storekeepers and 32 pharmacists were accumulating drugs after price.

Tuesday, the Ministry of Health has authorized the sale of 41 drugs at prices higher than those fixed by the fixed exchange rate. "Starting this week, the supply problem of 41 drugs will stop," Koca said.

Cancer, influenza drugs and antibiotics are among the drugs that would be affected by price liberalization, Koca said.

Pharmacists and their patients are eager to change. "We have this problem for three or four months," said Engin Erdogan, at another Sisli pharmacy. "I do not have anything in my drip tray and I can not replace them."