The Ministry of Health and Population is discussing amending Decree 499 of 2012 on pricing medical products and the pharmacies’ margins, after responding to requests by multinational pharmaceutical producers in Egypt, according to sources speaking to Al Borsa. Multinational producers have complained that pharmacies would benefit more from the recent price increase decision than producers. Accordingly, the Minister has promised to form a committee comprising representatives from the MoHP, pharmaceutical producers and the Egyptian Pharmacist Syndicate, which will be responsible for amending decree 499 during a meeting with a delegation of 18 personnel representing multinational pharmaceutical producers. According to Decree 499, in the event of a government approving a price increase, the pharmacy’s profits should grow to 25% from 20% and the distributors profit grow to 9%  from 7%.  However, multinational companies clarified that the 20% increase on medicines selling less than EGP30 announced yesterday would result in an effective increase for producers of only 9.5% rather than 20%, while the pharmacies’ margins would grow 80% for imported medicines and 50% for locally produced medicines, and the distributors margin would grow effectively by 25%. Moreover, the decision will mainly benefit local and government producing companies, as multinational products mostly sell for higher than EGP30. On another note, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) held  a regular dollar sale of USD120mn at the price of USD8.78 on 17 May 2016, but stated that the dollars would be directed to the pharmaceuticals industry, which includes: imports of pharmaceutical products, manufacturing components, vaccines and related chemicals and infant formula. (Al Borsa, Reuters)