Exploring the impact of clawback on pharmaceutical expenditure: A case study of public hospitals in Greece.

Several European administrations have applied various mechanisms promoting cost containment to stabilise their budgets for pharmaceutical expenditure. Since 2016, Greece has adopted the clawback as a policy to contain the NHS hospitals' pharmaceutical expenditure, which increased significantly in the 2016-2020 period. The present study reviews the impact of this policy on the operation of NHS hospitals, the uninterrupted supply and rational use of their medicines, along with the sustainability of their finances.