As is public knowledge, considering the current difficult economic and geopolitical context, economies around the world have been affected to a greater or lesser extent, which directly affects the business climate in the countries, under this context many companies have been adopting different strategies to survive and stay in the market, one of them being the merger of companies.
However, these measures do not always benefit consumers because, in certain circumstances, these company mergers can give rise to occupying positions of almost absolute dominance of the market, with the consequences that this entails, such as the management of prices of the products they sell, for the purposes of illustrating one of these cases of company mergers that can affect consumers, I am going to take a Peruvian case as a model.
An issue that has been generating wide controversy in Peru, in the political sectors, labor unions in the health sector, consumers, among others, is the recent purchase of the pharmacy chains Mifarma, BTL and Fasa by Intercorp, which owns the Inkafarma pharmacy chain .
Intercorp now owns two major pharmacy chains: Inkafarma and MiFarma. Also, before being bought by Intercorp, MiFarma had acquired Boticas Arcángel, Boticas BTL and Mifasa. The only pharmacy chain that does not belong to the Intercorp group is Boticas & Salud.
With the new acquisition, Intercorp now owns most of the pharmacy chains except Boticas & Salud. That chain has only 160 pharmacies, while Intercorp would now have 2,043. That means that, of the pharmacies that belong to chains, the group has more than 90%.
Additionally, according to Semanaeconómica reports, Intercorp would now have 95% of the market share of pharmacy chains. This means that of all the sales made by pharmacy chains, this percentage is now owned by Intercorp.
As a result, the Minister of Health, Abel Salinas, pointed out that the purchase of Mifarma, BTL and Fasa pharmacies by Intercorp, owner of Inkafarma, could mean "a potential risk for the user."
"Certainly that could mean a potential risk for the user in the acquisition of their drugs or their medications," he warned.
He added that there is a bill in the Congress of the Republic to modify the constitutional regulations to regulate mergers between companies and thus avoid any dominance or dominance of any market that harms citizens.
"We hope that it will be discussed as soon as possible," he said.
In a press conference, Salinas mentioned that the Ministry of Health (Minsa) has its General Directorate of Medicines, whose mission is to supervise the availability of medicines in Peru.
"On the website of the ministry you can find the Medicines Observatory where you can find the type of medicine that there is, for example, generics and that should be in different pharmacies," he said.
He added that all this should not prevent Peru from moving towards a regulatory organization for medicines, supplies, food and medical technology that is "very powerful."
"That it is capable of regulating this drug market, as well as a powerful mechanism that can buy a sufficient quantity of generic drugs that are also of quality and that are of timely access for the citizen," he commented.
Additionally, he recalled that the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi) has market control functions but with the approval of new regulations it could access more tools to prevent the abuse of dominance position of some companies harm citizens.
Regarding this merger of companies, I must express my concern and this time I share the expressions of the Minister of Health, Abel Salinas, that this fact may represent a potential risk for the user, I also consider that the existing bill in the Congress of the Republic to modify the constitutional regulations to regulate mergers between companies and thus avoid any dominance or dominance of any market that harms citizens, must be debated as soon as possible with the participation of all sectors of society that are related to the issue, such as business associations, labor unions in the health sector, professional associations, consumer associations, among others, so that In this way, Peru has a regulatory framework that protects free enterprise and consumers, creating a favorable business climate for the country.
