The Ministry of Health is promoting the introduction of new tools to improve health services, following the passage of the draft law by the relevant Parliamentary Committee.

The Ministry of Health draft law “Establishment of an Innovation Fund – Patient access to new medicines and treatments – Improvement of health services and other provisions”, which has been passed by a majority vote of the Social Affairs Committee, will be introduced tomorrow and the day after tomorrow in the plenary session of the Parliament for discussion and voting.

The billand during its second reading in the committee, it was passed by a majority. The Southwest voted in favor of the bill. The KKE and Plevsi Eleftherias voted against, while all other parties reserved their positions in plenary.

The Minister of HealthAdonis Georgiadis, completing the processing of the bill in the House committee, stressed that this “comes to address an existing problem, which is to be able to offer patients in real need the new innovative drugs and treatments that are now being produced at a high rate. If we don’t put control filters and procedures in place, in the end heterogeneously all the budget will end up going for these formulations and we will not have money for the other drugs.”

We are creating, he said, “a model with an architecture that exists in other European countries. We have copied the model of Italy to a large extent.” The study was funded through the Recovery Fund and was carried out over several months by public health professor Souliotis. The minister stressed the need for the results of these formulations to be evaluated every three years. If they are achieving in patients what they report, they will remain on the low claw back list, if not, they will return and be subject to the high rate charge.

Mr. Georgiades dismissed as a “conspiracy scenario” claims that the creation of the Innovation Fund comes after pressure from the US ambassador in Athens, Kimberly Guilfoyle, to meet the demands of US pharmaceutical companies that want to pay a low claw back, saying that “for a claim to be reasonable, it must be able to be supported in time”.

The prime minister “announced the intention to create the fund in September 2025 at the ICF. Mrs. Guilfoyle in Greece came on November 4, 2025 and I, together with the Minister and Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance, saw her a month ago, in March 2026,” he said, adding: “How is it possible that something we announced many months before we even met Ms. Guilfoyle is the result of her own will?” Georgiades also pointed out that “as Minister of Health, I have never spoken to or been involved in anything with pharmaceutical companies. I have been to the US as Minister of Development and not for pharmaceutical companies,” he noted.

The minister said that with a legislative improvement that he will submit tomorrow, the participation of the patients’ body in the Innovation Fund committee will be satisfied. Regarding approvals of drug requests, he noted that the exception procedures have been opened so that patients can receive them through their doctor via the CIP Committee. “I,” he stressed, “independently sign off on any decision made by that committee.”

On the enacted provision of a general horizontal and universal ban on the sale of industrial hemp flower from all stores, Mr. Georgiades clarified that this does not apply to medicinal cannabis nor to other cannabis products available in other forms in specialised shops, because they can be supervised there (their content is low and they are not narcotic).

In response to criticism from the pharmaceutical industry that Greece has a high claw back rate, the minister remarked that this is because in Greece we have adopted higher reference prices and because we have a policy of having easier access to medicines than other countries. Pharmaceutical companies are not losing money, all of them are profitable. Greece’s public pharmaceutical expenditure in terms of GDP is at the European average and slightly above. We are creating a transparent and sustainable system.

Responding to the transfer of complaints about the staffing of the Nikea hospital, Georgiades said it has been strengthened and is being further strengthened. He said that in 2019 the hospital had a budget of €33.3 million and today it is at €58.7 million (+76%). Compared to 2019, there are 65 more permanent doctors, 36 more medical residents, 155 more nurses and plus 133 more other staff.

Also, 13 posts for permanent doctors have been added to the current advertisement, while within the current draft law there are provisions to ensure staffing and proper allocation of resident doctors so that the transfer of beds does not affect the operation of the hospital.

On the subject of hospital mergers, the minister said the splits are wrong. In all hospital linkages, the smaller hospitals win out over the larger ones because it is much easier to fill physician positions. He said, “localism should not prevail, but the goal is to have hospitals that work.”

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