Finland faces drug shortages as EU pricing rules pressure new medicines
Finland's public drug funding may struggle to secure new medicines because confidential discounts and EU pricing comparisons limit access.
Finland finances drug use through public reimbursements and hospital procurement, yet the lack of price transparency complicates the acquisition of new medicines. In many EU states, confidential discounts are applied to patented drugs, meaning the publicly listed price exceeds the price actually paid. Finland has introduced conditional reimbursement that sets a public wholesale price, with manufacturers returning part of the revenue to the national health insurer, but the true discounted price remains secret.
The United States' Most Favored Nation (MFN) pricing approach, which compares drug prices across selected OECD countries and includes confidential discounts, is now shaping European negotiations. This shift threatens the supply of new therapies in low-price markets such as Finland, where some cancer drugs have already failed to reach the market. Expanding conditional reimbursement to cover more patented medicines could mitigate these risks.
