Drug prices in Brazil to go up by more than 10 percent this week

Drug prices in Brazil should go up by 10.89 percent, Pharmaceutical Industry Union (Sindusfarma) said on Wednesday. The hike, which is at the maximum rate allowed, should come into force later this week.

The readjustment still needs to be authorized by the federal government, but Sindifarma pointed out that, by law, the annual price adjustment can be applied from Thursday onwards, “in about 13,000 presentations of medicines available in the Brazilian retail market.”

In a statement, the entity also highlighted that the readjustment is neither automatic nor immediate, “because the great competition between companies in the sector regulates prices: medicines with the same active ingredient and for the same therapeutic class (disease) are offered in the country by several manufacturers and at thousands of points of sale.”

The readjustment takes into account inflation and the so-called “Y factor,” which calculates production costs not captured by the IPCA consumer price index, such as electricity tariffs, exchange rate variation, and disparity in input prices. 

In 2021, according to Sindusfarma, drug prices rose 6.17 percent, compared to the official overall inflation rate of 10.06 percent, at a time of strong upward cost pressures in raw materials and logistics, plus a devalued Brazilian Real.

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