{"id":441214,"date":"2026-01-29T16:51:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/441214\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T16:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:51:12","slug":"prices-of-36-medicines-to-decrease-in-coming-weeks-minister-tells-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/441214\/","title":{"rendered":"Prices of 36 medicines to decrease in coming weeks, minister tells Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<br \/>\n        &#13;<br \/>\n            &#13;<br \/>\n                Kevin Schembri Orland&#13;<br \/>\n            &#13;<br \/>\n        &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<br \/>\n        Thursday, 29 January 2026, 10:17&#13;<br \/>\n        Last update: about 3 hours ago&#13;\n    <\/p>\n<p>            &#13;<br \/>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/ads.independent.com.mt\/www\/delivery\/ck.php?n=afef72b0&amp;cb=192\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/avw.jpeg; name=rb.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a>&#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>36 medicines are expected to see their prices reduce in the coming weeks, Health Minister Jo-Etienne Abela said in Parliament on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Documents tabled by the minister show that these medicines include Esomeprazole\u00a020mg and 40mg, Fluzac 20mg, Sertraline\u00a050mg and 100mg, among others.<\/p>\n<p>He was responding to a question posed by PL MP Rosianne Cutajar, who asked about a document tabled the previous day by PN MP Stephen Spiteri.<\/p>\n<p>Spiteri on Tuesday had said that a legal notice that increased tariffs on the importation of medicines resulted in medicine prices rising, and tabled a list of some medicines which increased. But on Wednesday, the Health Minister slammed the list.<\/p>\n<p>Abela said he spoke to the Medicines Authority, saying it was a serious allegation. He said that the list of 101 products presented by the PN MP &#8220;includes many products that are not considered to be medicines. How can the price of products that are not subject to tariffs increase due to these tariffs?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Abela said that from the medicines listed, 21 were not subject to tariffs. &#8220;The rest of the medicines, their price was fixed before the tariffs were issued,&#8221; he said, questioning how the tariffs could have raised their prices.<\/p>\n<p>He asked where Spiteri got the list from.<\/p>\n<p>Abela compared the price of a medicine to that in another country, Ireland. A Ventolin inhaler, he said, sells in Malta for around \u20ac7, but in Ireland a pack of two costs \u20ac23.<\/p>\n<p>He said that in 2023, the Medicines Authority negotiated with medical companies the reduction in price of 66 medicines, and those medicines remained with the same price. &#8220;It is not true that their prices rose.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said that after the tariffs were issued, the Medicines Authority has been in negotiations with medicine companies in the country to, with or without tariffs, continue negotiating a reduction of medicine prices, and here the minister submitted the list of 36 medicines which are expected to see prices reduce in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; &#13; &#13; Kevin Schembri Orland&#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; Thursday, 29 January 2026, 10:17&#13; Last update: about 3&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[49,48,84,377],"class_list":["post-441214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}