Agreement was reached yesterday between the government and medicine agents to import hundreds of products that have not been available in pharmacies for the past two years.

Importers have pledged that medicine prices, which soared in recent months, will now be cut "within two months" as the new system will ensure that a variety of products will be available for consumers.

Months of discussion ensued after importers blamed a medicine regulations regime introduced upon EU accession - which drastically reduced the number of medicines that could be imported - for the increase in prices.

The government had, however, maintained that the price hikes were caused by cartels and had threatened to re-introduce price orders.

During back-to-back press conferences that followed a whole morning of talks yesterday, the Malta Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprise (GRTU), the Federation of Industry (FOI) and Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech said they had agreed on a system of "uncomplicated" fees.

The government agreed to charge a Lm50 yearly registration fee on each medicinal product instead of the previously established fees under which importers and distributors said they had to pay thousands of liri merely to register a single product.

A board on which importers' and distributors' representatives will sit is expected to come up with reference prices for locally sold products benchmarked against the price of the same medicines as they are sold in other European countries.

This will ensure that Maltese patients do not pay more than citizens of other small EU nations for the same medicine.

It was also agreed yesterday that instructions on information leaflets and the outer package of a product need not appear in both Maltese and English.

This had been another hurdle for importers as translating and printing all the information in Maltese would not have been financially viable for manufacturers given the local economies of scale.

Mr Fenech said: "The government has cut registration fees drastically. Therefore, there will be no excuse from now on if medicine prices do not go down. We have bitten the bullet and now expect importers to register the medicines they had stopped importing."

He said the government would finance the shortfall which the Medicines Authority may incur due to the cuts.

Those importers whose products exceed the established reference price would have to present a breakdown of costs to explain why their product is more expensive.

"Lower prices will not compromise quality," Reginald Fava, an importer and former president of the Chamber of Commerce, promised, explaining that the new system would ensure easy access to products that are already certified and sold in the EU.

Along with Joanna Cremona, the Chamber's healthcare trade section president, Mr Fava had rejected the government's claims that medicine prices were spiking due to the formation cartels.

FOI president Adrian Bajada said manufacturers were happy with the new arrangement.

Unlike what had been suggested by some quarters, the country could not scrap the medicines authority and simply adopt medicines registered in other countries, he said. Without a medicines authority, the 12 local medicine manufacturers that had invested here and were employing some 1,000 workers would not be able to register their products.

The FOI confirmed that fees for local manufacturers would remain unchanged.

Mario Debono, from the GRTU, said the system agreed yesterday favoured the importation of generic medicines that imitate well existing drugs but are cheaper because they are patent free.

The GRTU represents pharmacies and a number of parallel traders importing generic medicines which have also been registered and are widely used in the EU.

"Patients will, in this way, have a greater variety of medicines at their disposal," Mr Debono said.

Those involved in the talks are expected to inform Brussels about the arrangement in a meeting with representatives of the European Commission's Directorate General of Enterprise on September 26.

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