SLOVENIA: 2009 SPECIAL 301 REVIEW - ADDITIONAL INFO

UNCLAS LJUBLJANA 000063 SENSITIVE SIPDIS EEB/TPP/IPE - TMCGOWAN DEPT PASS TO USTR (JCHOE-GROVES) E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON ETRD KIPR SI SUBJECT: SLOVENIA: 2009 SPECIAL 301 REVIEW - ADDITIONAL INFO REF: A. SECSTATE 8401 ¶B. LUBLJANA 56 (SBU) The Slovenian Agency for Medicinal Products and Medical Devices shared new information with EmbOffs that directly addresses PhRMA's concerns, and reinforces Post's recommendation that Slovenia not be included on the watchlist (ref B). The PhRMA complaint alleges that "A new draft pricing regulation was recently prepared, but has neither been officially adopted by the Minister of Health (MoH),nor published in the Official Gazette. The new pricing regulation could pose a number of significant problems, particularly with respect to a new proposal under consideration to set the maximum Slovenian price as a fraction of reference countries' prices as opposed to full prices." However, on January 30, the government of Slovenia adopted new pricing regulation, which was published in the Official Gazette on January 31. The new pricing regulation set the price at 100% of the reference countries' prices. Therefore, PhRMA's concerns appear to have been fully addressed and Slovenia should NOT be included on the Special 301 watchlist. FREDEN