On May 12, 2010, was held the first National Meeting of patient organizations in the network of the National Patient Organization (NPO).

The meeting was attended by representatives of patient organizations from almost all regional cities in Bulgaria, representatives of the Ministry of Health and the Agency "Medical audit" of the NHIF, the associations of pharmaceutical manufacturers: Bulgarian Generic Pharmaceutical Association (BGPharmA) and the Association of Research in Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Bulgaria (ARPharM), doctors and patients.

Rossen Kazakov, CEO of BGPharmA presented role of generic drugs in health care. Generic medicines have the same quality and meet the same requirements for registration by the Bulgarian Drugs Agency as  the original products. For the registration from the generic manufacturers  are required the same documents as from the producers of originals as well as evidence of their bioequivalence to the reference product.

Moreover, generic drugs contribute to the reduction of prices of the pharmaceutical market and ensure savings for patients and public health funds that can be used to finance additional expensive life-saving drug therapies.

The decision of the European Court of Justice of 22 April 2010 was presented, under which "public institutions can provide financial benefits to doctors to promote the prescription of affordable medicines. This decision gives a green light to health care institutions in the Member States to motivate the health care professionals to prescribe and dispence the generic drugs available, while it is demonstrated that this does not bear any risk to patients and does not constitute a limitation of choice linked to  commercial purposes.

Representatives of patient organizations have received information and positive examples from most EU countries in which public health institutions implement various campaigns to provide updated information to doctors, pharmacists and patients on the socio-economic benefits of generics. BGPharmA stresses how important it is in Bulgaria to introduce a coherent policy to promote health of patients, physicians and pharmacists to use generic drugs to ensure affordability and sustainability of health.

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