Bayer chief slams German health policy

Although Germany's new ruling coalition parties "have agreed to increase the pharmaceutical industry's scope for innovation, the new cost-containment law will achieve precisely the opposite," warned Werner Wenning, chairman of the board of management at Bayer AG, speaking to journalists at the firm's annual financial news conference (Marketletter March 13).

"The reference prices which have once again been introduced for patent-protected drug products come primarily at the expense of the research-based pharmaceutical industry, even though drug costs only account for 14.5% of all health care expenditures in Germany - a level significantly below that of most other European countries," he said.

Mr Wenning went on to tell journalists that "this unilateral discrimination not only weakens our industry, it also jeopardizes the long-term supply of modern medicines for patients. That is why we would once again like to encourage the German government to end this patchwork approach to health policy and initiate consistent reforms."