Pharmaceutical giant Roche may decide to stop selling medicine to Iceland, unless the government stops lowering the price of medication for its country’s people.
Robin Turner, CEO of Roche – one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, and at the forefront of cancer medication – told Vísir that, “It is not possible to endlessly lower the price of medication in Iceland, as if it exists in a vacuum. You have to look at the big picture here. The Icelandic government is not using the right methods to balance the budget. They make unilateral decisions without consulting us or other pharmaceutical companies.”
All of which brought him to the main point of his argument: “It is obvious that if drug prices go below a certain limit, my company will have no other choice but to stop selling medication in Iceland.”
Minister of Health Álfheiður Ingadóttir responded, saying that the matter was a misunderstanding on Turner’s part – as she looks at it, she simply wants Icelanders to be paying a comparable price for medication that people elsewhere in Europe are paying.