D. Ubaid bin Salman Alubaid the under secretary of health clarified that the health ministry expenditure of money on drug purchase reached 2200 million riyals in the budget of this year, and this represents 45% of drug market in the Kingdom.
During the opening of the meeting that was organized yesterday by the medical administration of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Riyadh and entitled the "effect of drug economics on health care system", d. Alubaid talked about the fast developments in the medical field and how they are accompanied with expensive costs that increase year by year because of the world economy and its systems and world companies which produce drugs or distributors and others.
In addition, he wished that the S.F.D.A will contribute in monitoring, regulating and circulating drugs, setting regulations that avoid unjustifiable practices in drug market, restricting unjustifiable expenditures of drugs, educating people about the proper use of drugs and reducing the expensive costs spent on drugs.
He expressed his fears about false drugs that enter the Kingdom unofficially although the health ministry monitors the drug market and punishes the irregular importers. On his part, d. Saleh bin Muhammad Alganbaz the representative of the medical committee in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Riyadh confirmed that the meeting aimed to focus on the importance of drug economics in order to control the costs of health care, improve the quality of health services since the Kingdom has offered the cooperative health insurance and gain the utmost benefit of pharmaceutical preparations and other health techniques within the limited financial sources. He appealed for having best solutions that encounter challenges of drug economics, help in controlling health care costs and support having medical services and treatments that are suitable for limited incomes.
The consultant of drug sector in the S.F.D.A, d. Ibraheem Ashwaier stated that drug is the main nerve of health services which cost approximately 13,5 billion dollar annually in the Kingdom, and 1,6 billion of it spent on drug which equals 10% of the total expenditure.
He referred to the several changes of drug market that lead to use analytic studies of drug economics and make related researches to improve the offered health services.
And he added that the S.F.D.A seeks cooperation with all related authorities to offer good quality drugs with suitable prices.
The pharmacist Abdurrahman bin Sultan Assultan the chairman of the subcommittee of scientific offices and registration asked for taking the advantages of drug economics applications which will contribute in growing and developing this pioneer applications. He stated that the local drug market has exceeded the ceiling of five billion riyals during the last year at a growth rate of 10% beside the great growth of population and the duplication of health care services three times during the last few decades.
D. Assultan offered a work paper entitled " General View on Drug Economics" which deals with the government tendencies of studying drug costs and ways of reducing them and issuing resolutions to determine drug costs. Yet, there are serious attempts to offer low costs substitutes and authorities of health try to make balance between drug costs and patients financial status. For that reason, they ask some governments for offering support. D. Fawaz bin Abdussattar Alalami, the consultant of Commerce and Industry Ministry ensured that the Kingdom will make use of joining the World Commerce Organization because it will keep on giving priority to local factories in order to offer government purchases of drugs and excluding foreign agents to restrict this activity for Saudis.

Source: Alyaum newsletter