The Hungarian parliament voted on Monday to allow the government to re-institute price controls on subsidised drugs, hitting the stock prices of domestic drug firms hard, though the health minister said he was holding intensive talks with companies to reach a consensus.
Parliament passed an amendment that allows the government to regulate prices for up to another nine months after the country's Constitutional Court earlier struck down an government-imposed cut in subsidised drugs prices of 15 percent.
"The amendment offers the opportunity to the government to intervene ... if it feels it has to intervene," Andras Bohm, a parliamentary member from junior governing party Free Democrat SZDSZ and a co-author of the amendment, told a special session of parliament.
The amendment was passed by 194 votes with one voting against and 141 abstentions, mainly by the opposition right wing Fidesz party.