Pharmaceutical expenditure in Spain: Cost and control

In recent years, the Spanish government has been battling to keep pharmaceu tical expenditures under control. Its measures include control of prices, i ntroduction of a "negative list" of drugs no longer reimbursed, increased c ost-sharing, and introduction of overall budgets for pharmaceutical expendi tures. Although the average prices of old pharmaceutical products declined by 39 percent over the last 15 years and consumption in value increased by only 10 percent, real pharmaceutical expenditures in Spain increased by 264 percent over that period. The main reason for the continuing rise in these expenditures and the failure of cost-containment measures is the introduct ion of new, more expensive drugs, which often fail to offer any real therap eutic advantages over products already on the market. This situation is exa cerbated by a lack of effective demand-side measures such as budgets for do ctors and lack of a generics market.