Administrative intervention on the prices of industrial medicines in Spain and their relevance in the dispensing of them in pharmacies

Abstract

The right to health is made effective, among others, through the guarantee of access to medicines, since these contribute to prevent, cure, or alleviate diseases and to correct or repair the aftermath caused by them. Thus, in Spain, the right of all citizens to obtain medicines through the pharmaceutical benefits guaranteed by the National Health System, which is the health model implemented to guarantee health protection, is recognized. To guarantee its sustainability, the State has the capacity to regulate the economic conditions of pharmaceutical services, as well as to standardize the price of medicines. In this paper, the administrative intervention on all the economic and political issues surrounding the medicine in its relationship with health protection is analyzed, such as: the decision of public financing, that is, inclusion of medicine in the pharmaceutical provision of Social Security, and the fixing of the price of financing the medicine from state funds related to health or Social Security, which are carried out in each of the Member States, and in Spain correspond to the Ministry with competences in health.