"Failure" Of German Health Care Reforms

German drug market reforms, most notably the reference pricing system of 1989 and the prescription budget of 1993, have failed to produce long-term benefits and prescribing costs have begun to rise again, says a new report from Datamonitor, available through the Marketletter.

The reforms failed because they did not target the system's underlying structure, it says. In the prescription sector, they have reduced the dominant role of physicians and industry, and have brought in patients and patient groups as new customers.

The report forecasts a power shift towards groups with access to prescription and outcomes data and which are able to influence physicians when deciding treatment, and expects the leaders in this information-driven shift to be the statutory insurers, which have the most comprehensive sets of data in Germany. They are reaching a point where they can generate evidence-based treatment protocols, it says.