[About direct and on behalf delivery of drugs.]

Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) intervenes in the debate that started from the parliamentary inquiry of the Chamber of Deputies at the XII Commission on the issue of the convenience, or not, of the transition from direct distribution (DD) to distribution on behalf (DPC) of local health companies, providing further data and additional information from the AIFA Medicines Observatory (OsMed). The availability of data and processing and the introduction of stringent criteria in the possible application of this distribution transfer, reduces the impact in terms of higher costs, estimated at 320 million euro/year. However, the contribution does not take into account that, on the basis of a regulatory automatism inserted in the Agreements between 7 Regions and the Unions of pharmacies, it is foreseeable a further transfer of medicines from DPC to retail distribution, today diversified on the basis of the different public price values of medicines (range 10-50 euro): this could result in an additional cost burden for the National Health Service (NHS) estimated at over 160 million due to the effect of the cessation of the cost reduction resulting from the tender savings and the emergence of the remuneration of the entire distribution chain. The final impact could therefore be very high in terms of additional expenditure for NHS.