Treasury seeks advisors for pharmaceutical consolidation

The Treasury Ministry is to choose today the advisory company to prepare the blueprint for the formation of Polish Pharmaceuticals Holding (PHF). However, sector analysts warn that consolidation of the four biggest drug producers - Polfa Tarchomin, Warszawa, Pabianice and vaccine producer Biomed - will not strengthen their positions unless hospitals start paying for the medicines they receive from members of the future holding. According to specialists, the only way for the pharmaceutical producers to stay afloat is government intervention to restore liquidity in several hundred debt-ridden hospitals which fail to pay for the drugs they receive. "The greatest problem of PHF is not excessive employment or production irregularities but the hopeless state of their clients," said one Health Ministry insider. The common opinion in the medical sector is that the hospitals' debt has long exceeded its critical level and it is high time the minister took steps to improve the situation. Specialists maintain that government plans to amalgamate the country's health funds into a single group will not solve the problem. (Puls Biznesu, p. 10) J.K.