Prices of medicines
It is the companies that manufacture, import, or sell medicine in Denmark that set the prices of the medicine.
The regulations state that prescription-only medicine and the types of over-the-counter medicine that can only be sold in pharmacies must be sold at the exact same price at all pharmacies in Denmark. Therefore, prices for these types of medicine do not fluctuate between pharmacies, meaning it does not matter which pharmacy you choose to fill your prescription.
Prices for herbal medicines and the types of over-the-counter medicine that can be sold in stores other than pharmacies, such as supermarkets and kiosks, are allowed to vary. These prices are solely determined by the store, so you may experience price differences from one store to another.
Prices of Prescription and Pharmacy-Only over-the-counter Medicine
Prescription-only medicine and pharmacy-only over-the-counter medicine are sold at exactly the same price at all pharmacies across the country, and companies are required to maintain the price of the medicine for 14-day periods.
Specifically, this means that every 14 days, companies report their price changes to the Danish Medicines Agency through the DKMAnet notification system, which ensures that companies cannot see each other’s price changes. The medicine with the lowest price then gains the right to be offered at pharmacies during the upcoming 14-day pricing period. The Danish Medicines Agency subsequently publishes the new applicable prices on the website www.medicinpriser.dk.
The free market competition and the changing prices every 14 days aim to encourage high competition, thereby keeping medicine prices low in Denmark.
New Medicine and Generic/Biosimilar Medicine
New medicines are patented during their first years on the market. This means that no other companies are allowed to “copy” the medicine or attempt to produce the same medicine at a lower price. When the patent period expires, other companies are allowed to “copy” the medicine and market so-called generic medicines or biosimilar medicinal products. Generic medicine is, broadly speaking, medicine that contains the same active ingredients in the same amounts and in the same pharmaceutical form as the original product. Biosimilar medicinal products are new versions of already existing biological medicines that have the same effect, strength, and form as the original product.
There is generic medicine available for much of the medicine prescribed in Denmark. If there is a generic version available for the product you have been prescribed, the pharmacy is required to offer you the cheapest option. Reimbursement for medicine are always given for the currently cheapest available product within the same subsidy group, meaning the cheapest product is usually the one most commonly sold.
Likewise, there may also be biosimilar medicinal products available for some biological medicines. If there is a cheaper biosimilar product on the market in a similar pen or syringe with the same user functionality as the original product, the pharmacy must offer you the cheapest one. Reimbursement in these cases is also granted for the currently cheapest available product within the same reimbursement group.
Companies compete to have the lowest-priced product, which means that it often changes which company offers its medicine at the lowest price. Therefore, regular users of prescription medicines may often experience that the price of their medicine fluctuates, even though they have been prescribed the same medicine for years. Similarly, they may also often find that they receive different generic or biosimilar products from one time to the next.
The medicine reimbursement system is designed so that the more costs one incurs for reimbursed medicine, the higher the reimbursement one receives within a one-year period. This helps minimize the price fluctuations experienced by citizens.
Pharmacies can also offer citizens with high medicine expenses deferred payments for their out-of-pocket costs for reimbursed medicine. Through a deferral arrangement, the annual co-payment is evenly distributed across the months of the year.
The purpose of the pricing system is to keep medicine prices low, and analyses have shown that Denmark has some of the lowest prices for generic medicine in Europe.