Kuwait Health Min. OKs price cuts of over 200 drugs

KUWAIT, Kuwaiti Minister of Health Ahmad Al-Awadhi has approved the price cuts of 209 drugs and products in the private health sector only as part of the ministry's periodical medicine price review. The move, which involves the price reduction of diabetes and blood pressure drugs, antibiotics and cholesterol-lowering drugs and other vital products, is based on the ministry's medicine quotation committee, the ministry said in a press release. It is chiefly meant to ensure equilibrium between making drugs at reasonable prices and buttressing the national medicine industry, it said, adding that some drugs have been reduced by 60 percent. The fresh decision will be effective three months after being published in the country's Official Gazette, thus giving the private health sector enough time to implement the decided price cuts, according to the release. Source: Kuwait News Agency