It was promised, but medicine was not accepted – Thousands of patients are waiting for the new therapies

This year, the pharmaceutical fund will increase by another seven percent, with approximately HUF 535 billion going to all kinds of therapeutic treatments. At the same time, despite the promises, there was no acceptance of medicines on January 1, 2025, even though Judit Bidló, Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, spoke about the acceptance of sixty preparations in 75 indications at the end of last year Hungarian Society of Clinical Oncology at the Budapest congress. Among the products waiting to be accepted, there are approximately the same number of new therapies for cardiology and breast cancer patients.

he told Economx Katalin Szalóki, president of the Association of Innovative Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (AIPM).

The good news is that the rate of the special tax on innovative pharmaceutical manufacturers has been reduced from the previous 40 percent to 20 percent from January 1, 2025, and the extra profit tax has been abolished, said Katalin Szalóki, but predictability is still lacking.

The health government promised that there would be an annual intake of medicines, but this did not happen again, which means uncertainty for foreign companies. International pharmaceutical companies can’t plan like this, again at the last minute it turned out that there would be no drug intake, said Katalin Szalóki.

The foundation was not started either

According to the president of the AIPM, something is very wrong Batthyány with the Strattmann Foundation neither. This foundation would manage the distribution of nearly HUF 45 billion per year intended to support therapies that are not yet publicly available. The start of the foundation was promised for January 2025, but this did not happen either.

The AIPM constantly indicated to the health government that the foundation concept is bleeding from a thousand wounds. Among other things, because international pharmaceutical companies cannot make an offer to a state foundation, according to Katalin Szalóki, this is a “red line”.

Since no new drugs have been accepted, patients can receive some of the modern therapies through NEAK on the basis of individual fairness. At the same time, the AIPM is aware of a case where the NEAK rejected a unique fairness request and asked the patient’s doctor to try the new therapy at the Batthyány Strattmann Foundation.

And then let’s return to the 2025 pharmaceutical fund, for which HUF 535 billion is allocated in the budget. This year, there will be a reorganization of the coffers, 75.8 percent of the total support is provided by the pharmaceutical subsidy expenditure (HUF 405.6 billion) and 24.2 percent by the pharmaceutical subsidy provision (HUF 129.2 billion). writes in his blog post Association of Network Pharmacies (HGYSZ).

The subsidy amount for high-value medicines in the budget law will increase significantly after two years, by more than HUF 50 billion, reaching HUF 180 billion.

There is less access to medical aids

At the same time, compared to 2024, several significant amounts will not change substantially from the point of view of drug supply. For example, the monthly limit of the individual medicine plan will still be a maximum of HUF 12,000 per month, while the annual limit will still be HUF 6,000. An amount roughly HUF 1 billion lower than this year’s, a total of HUF 15.9 billion, is allocated for public medical care.

The amount of the service fee provided to pharmacies remains HUF 4.7 billion, and the allowance for pharmacies remains at HUF 4.1 billion. As in previous years, pharmacies can still request a financing advance, the budget amount of which will not change next year either: 1.2 billion forints have been allocated for medicines, while 2.1 billion forints have been allocated for medical aids (GYSE).

The government allocated HUF 79.2 billion to support the GYSE, which is 11.5 percent lower than last year.

In 2025, HUF 62.7 billion will be allocated to other GYSE subsidies and loans (in 2024 it was HUF 65 billion), while individual GYSE subsidies will receive HUF 16.4 billion (in 2024 it was HUF 24.4 billion).

We go to the pharmacy a lot and spend a lot on medicine

According to the statistics office’s latest inflation data, medicines and medicinal products They went up by 3.1 percent in December 2024. In Hungary, the population goes to pharmacies a lot and spends a lot on medicines. According to statistical data, we meet pharmacists much more often than family doctors. In the European Union (EU), 46 million pharmacist-patient encounters take place every day. In 2022, a Hungarian general practitioner dealt with 13-15 thousand patients. According to Eurostat data, Slovakia, Germany and Hungary are the places where patients go to the doctor the most, we wrote more about this here.

For the time being, only pharmaceutical turnover data for the year 2023 are available, when pharmaceutical turnover exceeded HUF 1,000 billion, the annual growth rate was 11.6 percent, which is a record. A year earlier, the total pharmaceutical turnover was HUF 980 billion. According to data from the Central Statistical Office, we spent HUF 674 billion on prescription-only medicine in 2023, of which the health insurance company provided HUF 521.7 billion in subsidies.

At the same time, pharmaceutical waste is also significant, in 2023 the population threw away more than 338.2 tons of pharmaceutical waste, either because the product’s warranty expired or because it was not used, according to Recyclomed Nonprofit Kft., which collects the waste. with our paper. Every month, 28.1 thousand kilograms of hazardous waste were put in paper boxes, you can put expired or unused medicines in four thousand collection boxes across the country, there are collection boxes in all the country’s pharmacies, many organic stores, drugstores, and even gas stations.