Company specific issues

1.	Swiss manufacturers of innovative medicines complain about entry barriers.
Companies are doing their best to make their drugs affordable to the local healthcare system, but existing regulations are not protecting Slovak patients sufficiently in terms of ensuring products availability and preventing excessive drugs exports. 
2.	Nestlé: A growing Slovak economy and decreasing unemployment will strengthen pressure on wage hike. This will limit the availability of skilled workforce on the labour market. Sharing of experience in the field of dual education might be a way to prevent this development, allow companies to find the skilled workforce and lower youth unemployment in the Slovak Republic.
3.	Google: Whilst we only have a very small sales office presence in Bratislava / Slovakia, Google is working with partners on the promotion of the STEM education (STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and Entrepreneurship in Slovakia.
Possible topics that could be raised in this context:
•	Promotion of STEM education / successful Swiss model
•	Environment for start-ups
•	Risks of overregulation in the fast changing digital field. The careful and liberal Swiss approach is successful. In this context, the role of the Slovak EU-Presidency to shape the discussion on the future EU Digital Single Market is very important. We support SK presidency by prioritizing quality over speed and following evidence-based and better regulation approaches in DSM discussions.
4.	Alpiq: is interested to participate in the realization of the pumped hydro-storage power plant “Ipel” in Slovakia and would be glad to get government support in this matter. Further, Alpiq would like to represent itself as full-service provider for realization of demanding construction / infrastructure projects 
5.	Zimmer Biomet:
o	Topic 1: 19% tax on non-financial income to be paid by Health Care Professionals (HCP’s) on training delivered by industry
o	Topic 2: Debts in Slovakian health care system  - Outstanding payments of 500+ days
 
Background information to the company specific issues mentioned above:

To point 1:	Comment by Swiss manufactures of innovative medicines:
Limited access to innovative treatments is a common topic for the whole pharma industry. Swiss pharma companies invest heavily in R&D and are recognized as leaders in innovation. Existing market entry barriers heavily affect innovative companies.

To point 4: 	Comments by Zimmer Biomet (presenting 2 general issues the med tech sector as a whole is faced with)

Topic 1: 	tax applied to all non-financial income received by Health Care Professionals (HCP’s) – applied from 2015
•	All medical education provided by medical companies is considered to be non-financial income and is subject to 19% tax
•	All Third Party Education Conferences (TPEC´s) are considered to be non-financial income for participants and taxed as such (also 19%) – except for registration fee, transportation, accommodation and food
•	Internal medical educational events are disadvantaged compared to TPEC – as they have to declare all internal costs
•	This fact limits surgeons’ access to medical education – some surgeons prefer not to attend events due to cost reasons, and this affects level of medical practice / and safe usage of medical products  
•	It is important to point out that HCP’s are the only occupational group affected by this tax. No other professional group, also no other state employee group is submitted to such a tax.

Topic 2:  Debts in Slovakian health care system 
•	The effective term of payment in the Slovakian health care system amounts currently to 500 days in average and is increasing (see debt overviews by the local trade organizations in the medical sector).
•	The new government has announced to pay all debts of the public health care system this year with a special payment drawn from the state budget and to create a sustainable system, which will not generate any new debts. In the past, every 3-4 years government has paid outstanding debts in the public health sector through a financial injection from the current state budget. The med tech sector encourages the Slovak government to establish a sustainable system, which would prevent creating new debts in the public health sector in the future.

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