Government negotiates with pharmaceutical firms

Minister at the Prime Minister''s Office Péter Kiss yesterday asked psychiatrist András Veér to mediate at the upcoming negotiations about financing the overshooting of medicine costs in the social security budget. Pharmaceutical companies will be informed today about the exact sum of medicine turnover and negotiations will start Monday. The government has budgeted Ft 284 billion for medicine costs for this year but now it expects an actual expenditure of Ft 320 billion and some other estimates point to even Ft 334 billion. According to an earlier agreement, the government and the companies equally share the costs of overshooting the target up to a total expenditure of Ft 314 billion. However, the companies do not want to refund more than Ft 16.5 billion.