The shortage of medicines is considered a health problem by the WHO and is increasingly affecting the countries of the European Economic Area, causing postponement or non-compliance to prescribed treatments, the occurrence of adverse reactions, as well as increased costs for citizens and health systems¹. The policy of continually reducing the price of medicines in Portugal in relation to the average prices in other European countries is one of the factors in the progressive shortage of the national market. The deterioration in the price of medicines has been reflected in the growing economic unfeasibility of producing medicines, in the supply of the market and, consequently, in patients’ access to some medicines.