The US ambassador to Finland, Barbara Barrett, talked to then Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen about the price of medicines. Barrett said around Midsummer in 2008 that the US pharmaceutical industry was scared that cheaper generic medicines could harm patented, more expensive medicines unfairly, or in other words make them even more expensive as fewer people buy them.

Legislation on promoting generic medicines was nearly ready in the summer of 2008. According to the diplomatic cables, America considered robust actions against Finland if the generic substitution measure was enacted.

According to the Wikileaks cables, the US considered placing Finland on the 301-watch list of countries that have weak patent or copyright protection, or other barriers to American companies.

The Finnish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs had calculated that mandatory generic substitution would save around 50 million euros a year, or in other words, that sum would be lost from sales of patented medicines.

This is achieved by the Social Insurance Institution, Kela, paying compensation for the cheaper generic version of a drug rather than the full-priced patened one.

See the original diplomatic cables (pdf file):

Subject: Finnish government approves pharmaceutical

Subject: Ambassador Barrett meets with Finnish Prime Minister Vanhanen

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