Georgiades: Only with the approval of the EMA will medicines be given to the country, it denounces sub-syntax

A serious complaint was made by the Minister of Health, at the conference of the Panhellenic Pharmaceutical Association on pharmaceutical policy in our country which often leads to waste and sub-composition in . Adonis Georgiades denounced a sub-subscribing to a highly expensive medicine for rare neurological condition, which proved also ineffective and withdrawn from the market. Speaking at a conference of the Panhellenic Pharmaceutical Association (CPS) on pharmaceutical policy, the Minister of Health referred to the high-cost medicine RELYVROP, at a cost of about $12,000 a month and over $150,000 a year. Treatment concerns the treatment of the rare disease of lateral amyotrophic sclerosis (ALS), otherwise referred to as motor neuron disease. According to Adoni Georgiadis, this medicine was coronated in Greece in the previous months, and had not been authorised by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The U.S. FDA had obtained an early-use authorisation for patients’ interest, based on early phase II results. However, the results of Phase III in 664 patients, published a few months later, demonstrated that patients had no improvement compared to the placebo group. The company representatives stated “deeply disappointed” and did not rule out the voluntary withdrawal of treatment within the following weeks. As the Minister of Health pointed out in his speech, the president of the Greek Neurological Society and Professor George Tzivoulis had written against treatment, while at the same time stating “exasperated with the waste that occurred” and added that any responsibilities of the doctors who prescribed it would be investigated. For this reason, an extraordinary meeting was held this afternoon at the Ministry of Health with the participation of the EOF, IFET and the Greek Neurological Society, in order to officially stop the treatment in our country. “I make it clear that from now on we are not going to administer drugs so easily that they have not been approved by Coreper,” concluded Mr Georgiades. By Janna Soulaki/iatropedia.gr