By Ellen t' Hoen, written for Medicines Law & Policy

“Dear Pharma,” writes the Dutch Minister of Health, Bruno Bruins in an open letter in the daily newspaper the Volkskrant, “Last week two messages jumped out for me in the press. One nice message: two new important cancer drugs are included in the basic [coverage] package. The second worrying: healthcare costs are unaffordable for more and more Dutch people.”

Bruins mentions the fact that treatments with a price tag of over € 100,000 are no longer a rarity. He points to the two million Euro treatment, Zolgensma, for a rare muscle disease, to show what is in store for the future. ”What particularly bothers me,” he writes, “is that we are not allowed to know why we have to pay so much. We simply get no explanation, no insight into the price structure.” He criticises companies for not taking their responsibility in ensuring that health care remains affordable and particularly takes to task those companies that increase their medicines prices not “because they have to. But because they can.”

The letter is part of the minister’s preparations for a meeting with an as-yet unnamed company which has increased the price of one of its products to about € 150,000. He is demanding from the company an explanation for this price hike as well as public disclosure of this explanation. He threatens to name and shame the company when it fails to do this. (Some speculate that this is about the company Leadiant, which we have written about (https://medicineslawandpolicy.org/2018/08/new-dutch-foundation-to-address-high-medicines-pricing-announces-plan-to-file-complaint-with-competition-authority/) here.)

The Vereniging Innovatieve Geneesmiddelen, the pharmaceutical lobby group in the Netherlands, tweeted that their members do not recognise themselves in the minister’s description. BIO Holland, which represents the biotech industry, under the somewhat flippant headline ‘Bruno#doeslief’ (which translates to ‘Bruno be sweet’) also expressed feelings of hurt but went on to pose some interesting questions: “What exactly does that transparency entail that you request? How much detail are you looking for? When are you satisfied? And when do you find a pharmaceutical story actually plausible? In short: which conditions and criteria must our pricing exactly meet in order for you to get the coveted “socially responsible” stamp?”

For further reading: https://medicineslawandpolicy.org/2019/08/dutch-minister-of-health-writes-open-letter-to-pharma-threatens-to-name-and-shame/