High price pressure – Doctors warn: “Medications will be scarce again”

According to leading doctors, Austria is on their way to a care crisis in medication. “It is embarrassing for a rich country such as Austria that painkillers, antibiotics or cough juices are missing for children,” says Johannes Steinhart, president of the Austrian medical association. The fact that it could go that far is mainly attributed to a structural problem: Austria is considered a “cheaperland” for manufacturers. A price tape that covers the delivery price of medicines downwards ensures that pharmaceutical companies prefer to provide their preparations to other countries in which higher profits play golf.

Research in Europe yes, the production is missing
The pharmaceutical industry ultimately works according to business principles, Ernst Agneter, pharmacologist and president of the Society of Doctors in Vienna emphasize: “If there are bottlenecks, where are the medication delivered?

The current doctrine “America First” can also lead to further tightening. Because, although the United States pay high prices and therefore also support research and development, Europe has benefited from this progress so far without paying in the right way.

Production is often no longer profitable
Agneter: “Every political decision that causes new costs or the sales proceeds under that of the production costs must be paid by someone. If no one wants to pay, the product will eventually disappear from the market.” Now just pay more, but in the light of ailing finances in the federal and health insurance companies, it cannot be the solution. Against this background, extra millions for the pharmaceutical industry are difficult to sell in public.

Discharge forces you to save you
The solution? Steinhart begs to move medication production to Europe: “We have seen how quickly worldwide supply chains can collapse when shipping routes are blocked or political crises break out.” However, the efforts of the past have caused few fruits.

Bring production to Europe
Both experts therefore warn in more speed. “It is high time to see the delivery of medicines again as what it is: an indispensable pillar of health care, which can also cost something,” says Steinhart. Otherwise, not only a follow -up, but also a tightening of the bottlenecks threatens.