It’s not up to pharmacies – voluntary price cap is coming?

The move fits into the government strategy, which introduced similar price-limiting measures in several market segments in the spring of 2024 – such as food and drugstore chains, and telecommunications. The pharmaceutical market, however, is special: some prices have been strictly regulated for decades, while others belong to the free market segment, where pharmacies have had more room for maneuver until now.

However, pharmacies already operate on narrow margins: a banded margin system is in place for subsidized medicines, where the more expensive a product is, the less the pharmacy receives. For example, in the case of a consumer price above HUF 6,491, the available pharmacy margin is fixed at HUF 990 – regardless of how much higher the price of the medicine is. For this reason, the margin ratio is constantly decreasing, last year it was only 8.3 percent.

Pharmacies typically try to offset the lost profit by distributing non-subsidized products – such as headache relievers and vitamins. This is precisely the area where the government is now preparing to impose voluntary price restrictions, which, according to professional players, could cause further difficulties. The operating costs of pharmacies – especially energy costs and wage costs – are increasing, while they have less and less room to maneuver on the revenue side. In smaller settlements, this process may already result in pharmacy closures, which worsens the population’s access to medicines.