Italy: The provisions of the draft Budget Law concerning the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors

31 Oct 2023    1 minute read
Sectors Healthcare & Life Sciences

In brief

The Council of Ministers has published the draft Budget Law, which contains new relevant provisions in the area of pharmaceutical and healthcare. In particular, it provides for an increase in the National Health Fund of 3 billion for the year 2024, 4 billion for the year 2025 and 4.2 billion from the year 2026.

Contents

Key takeaways

According to Article 42 (Refinancing of the National Health Service - NHS), this increase is intended, among others, to finance the new ceilings set for pharmaceutical expenditure and the changes in the distribution of medicines.

In the matter of the re-setting of the ceilings for pharmaceutical expenditure, Article 44 (Redetermination of the ceilings for pharmaceutical expenditure) provides that these are to be re-set at 8.6% as from 2024 for direct purchases; consequently, for territorial pharmaceutical expenditure (so called "convenzionata"), the ceiling is set at 6.7% as from the same year.

As to distribution of medicines, Article 45 (Changes to the distribution of medicines) provides for a new system of remuneration of pharmacies reimbursed by NHS with variable and fixed quotas. There are also additional fixed quotas in order to confirm and strengthen the capillarity of the pharmacy network throughout the territory.

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