{"id":8235025,"date":"2016-03-01T17:58:58","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T17:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aese.pt\/study-cases\/alliance-healthcare-medicines-with-regulated-prices\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T17:15:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T17:15:44","slug":"alliance-healthcare-medicines-with-regulated-prices","status":"publish","type":"study_case","link":"https:\/\/www.aese.pt\/en\/the-case-method\/case-studies\/alliance-healthcare-medicines-with-regulated-prices\/","title":{"rendered":"Alliance Healthcare \u2013 Medicines with Regulated Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br\/>Nuno Vasco Lopes looked out of his office window on Rua Projetada \u00e0 Matinha, in Lisbon, and thought about the great challenge that lay ahead.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was late July 2011, and the then Marketing and Sales Director of Alliance Healthcare had just learned that the Ministry of Health, together with the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Finance, were preparing to publish a new regulatory decree amending the law on price-setting rules for Prescription-Only Medicines (POM), thereby dictating the new margins assigned to each stakeholder in the sector: the Pharmaceutical Industry, Wholesale Distributors, and Pharmacies.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was one of the measures with the fastest results upon implementation that incoming governments had at their disposal to reduce expenditure on medicines\u2014changing the pricing methodology or margins for medications. At times, changes of just a few cents meant millions in savings for the State treasury. <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alliance Healthcare S.A., the market leader in Portugal, was seen as a benchmark company in the pharmaceutical sector, known for being the most advanced both from a technological standpoint and in terms of business solutions.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the last two years, as a result of an unprecedented global crisis, the company&#8217;s gross margin had been deteriorating, and it was necessary to implement restructuring measures at strategic, operational, and commercial levels.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, this news was worrying and left Nuno Vasco Lopes very apprehensive. Not only because of its complexity, but also because, in addition to the restructuring plan already underway, he had been asked to present a proposal on how to approach this legal issue at the next Board meeting, scheduled for late September. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nuno Vasco Lopes looked out of his office window on Rua Projetada \u00e0 Matinha, in Lisbon, and thought about the great challenge that lay ahead. It was late July 2011, and the then Marketing and Sales Director of Alliance Healthcare had just learned that the Ministry of Health, together with the Ministry of Economy and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8235026,"template":"","study_case_category":[553],"class_list":["post-8235025","study_case","type-study_case","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aese.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/study_case\/8235025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aese.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/study_case"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aese.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/study_case"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aese.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aese.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8235026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aese.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8235025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"study_case_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aese.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/study_case_category?post=8235025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}