European drugmakers slam 'exported price cuts'

LONDON Oct 2 (Reuters) - Europe's drug industry called on Thursday for action to ring-fence prices for medicines within EU countries so firms can sell at a discount in poorer states without seeing low prices leaking into their premium markets.

Arthur Higgins, president of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, said the price-control issue was a key element missing from a broad package of recommendations endorsed by European officials.

"Unless they address this, we can make no progress," Higgins, who also heads Bayer's BAYG.DE healthcare unit, told Reuters.

"We are paralysed as an industry to assist and we want to assist by offering different solutions (prices) to different countries.

"The problem is that pricing decisions are not kept within the bounds of that country; if there is a discounted price, that benefit has to stay within the country and should not be exported to people who don't need the benefit."

Pharmaceutical manufacturers complain that attempts to offer preferential pricing in poorer countries of central and eastern Europe are undermined by parallel trade -- the legal practice of buying drugs in low-priced markets and reselling them in higher-price countries.

Higgins was speaking as the final report from the EU High Level Pharmaceutical Forum was presented in Brussels.

That package of recommendations also included an endorsement of earlier published plans by the European Commission to let companies give "information" about their drugs directly to patients -- a move which has been condemned by some consumer groups.

The current ban on advertising prescription drugs will continue but activist group Consumers International believes the new move breaches a barrier designed to ensure patients only get independent and impartial information about medicines. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Quentin Bryar)