Greece's Health Minister and Pharma Association debate new drug pricing and clawback

At the third summit of the Greek Pharmaceutical Association, Health Minister Adonis Georgiades met with the association’s president Olympios Papadimitriou to discuss the sustainability of pharmaceutical spending and patient access to innovative therapies. The dialogue highlighted divergent views on financing costly new drugs while preserving fiscal stability, noting that hospital spending on expensive anticancer medicines rose 21 % from 2024 to 2025 and an additional 20 % in the first quarter of 2026 – a total increase of about 40 % over two years.

Georgiades defended the mandatory clawback mechanism as a reflection of the state’s budget limits, stressing that only around 25 % of patients require high‑price innovative treatments, while the remaining 75 % need established, cheaper drugs. He announced the rollout of electronic prescribing in hospitals on 1 July, which will enable real‑time monitoring of prescribing patterns and later incorporate AI tools for compliance checks. The government also reported allocating significant new resources to innovative therapies and is now approving four to five new drugs each month.

Papadimitriou called for a shared‑responsibility framework, criticizing the clawback’s average 80.6 % reimbursement rate for the first half of 2025 and likening it to “you steal from us and ask us to give back 80 %.” He warned that without a co‑responsibility clause, proposed measures remain merely “well‑intentioned wishes.”