CAIRO: Health Minister Hatem El-Gabaly has said that "there will be no backtracking on plans to reduce the prices of 93 medicines. El-Gabaly told representatives of the Pharmaceutical Medicines Chamber on Thursday that the prices of 40 medicines will be reduced in May with a further 53 reduced in August. In February the health minister announced that the price of 40 imported medical products would be reduced by between 20 and 40 percent. The state news media agency reports that pharmaceutical agencies responded by threatening to bring legal action against the decision, which they described as "unilateral . El-Gabaly is also quoted as saying during the Pharmaceutical Medicines Chamber press conference that the pharmaceutical industry in Egypt as a whole is being reviewed, and decrees have been passed "with the aim of improving quality and bringing all aspects of pharmaceutical production under control: storage, pricing, registration, and fighting the production of counterfeit medicines . Ministry of Health decree 373, announced last year, made major changes to the way that both domestically and imported medicines are produced. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), an NGO, raised a legal challenge to the decree on the grounds that in passing it, the health minister exceeded his powers by introducing a fundamental change that undermines the right to health as guaranteed by the constitution. -Daily News Egypt
