A study by the Universidad de Costa Rica notes that one company controls the distribution of 80% of drugs sold, with price differences of up to 1,000%.

An article in Nacion.com reports that there is “little or no competition in the private sector of medicine, product of an industry that is “highly concentrated”, causing Costa Rica to have higher drug prices compared to other Central American countries.”

An investigation by the Development Observatory of the University of Costa Rica (UCR), commissioned by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC), states that “national legislation has loopholes that allow these situations to occur, but there is also a lack of supervision in retail outlets” and that “competition is zero, which allows ample profit margins for medicines that are handled exclusively, which represent four-fifths of the total medicines registered”.

“Pharmaceutical wholesalers are central to understanding the lack of competition in the sector”, says the document. Part of that, says the research is that “the price of drugs is often determined by the negotiations that laboratories make with drugstores (intermediaries) directly.”

Source: Nacion.com