Albania is suffering from a serious lack of innovative medicines and therapies, with just 3% of drugs approved by the European Union in the last three years available locally, leading to calls from pharmacists to improve the way drugs are brought to the market.
Between 2017 and 2020, out of 160 drugs approved in the EU for rare diseases and cancer, just five were approved in Albania and none were added to the state subsidised disbursement list.
“The drug becomes usable when it is included in the reimbursement list. Albania has a medication reimbursement fund of only $100 million per month, while the countries of the region and Europe, up to 10 times higher”, the Association of Pharmacists told Monitor.
They explained that the cost of registering products and bringing them into the country is too high to justify the small number of people needing specialist drugs. Furthermore, the budget for reimbursing them is too small.
The state-run agency, the Compulsory Health Insurance Fund, did not answer health budget questions and include new therapies, not just those for rare conditions in the list.
For the 30% that live in poverty and the almost 50% on the brink, sometimes accessing life-saving medication can be a struggle, mainly if it is a rare condition or one where treatment is not included on the reimbursement list.
A recent study by IQVIA found that Albania has the lowest rate of new drugs in the region, far behind North Macedonia with 11 approved drugs and Serbia with 17.
But it is not just drugs for rare diseases or cancer that cannot be bought locally—even medications for conditions such as depression, blood and heart conditions, and ADHD.
