Reports of expensive prescription drugs

There have been numerous complaints in these columns about the alleged higher prices of prescription drugs in Malta compared to other EU countries but I am not aware that a satisfactory explanation has been put forward.

One prescription drug (Xatral), used mainly by pensioners, costs more than twice in Malta than what it costs in pharmacies all over Italy. Free market forces usually determine different prices for the same goods marketed in different countries depending on what price level a specific market is considered to be able to bear. Does this mean that Maltese pensioners are reckoned to be able to bear much higher prices for medicines than pensioners in Italy?

How have pharmaceutical companies/importers reached this business conclusion when official statistics show the proportion of Maltese who are over 65 and facing poverty levels is higher than the EU average?

Our alliance is mainly concerned with the problems of pensioners in need (not so much with problems of millionaire pensioners) and we therefore ask for some local action rather than empty statements of intent. The EU bureaucracy should also be urgently looking into why a European single-market in pharmaceuticals does not yet exist.