Lilly CEO warns that Germany's health reforms are harming innovation

Speaking to the Federation of German Industries Conference in Germany last week, John Lechleiter, chairman, president and chief executive of US drug major Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY), slammed the German health care system which he said is stifling innovation and the country’s approach to drug pricing could lead to drugmakers refusing to launch new medicines and cut back on their investments.

He called for Germany to overhaul the complex system of drug reimbursement now going into effect, known by its acronym AMNOG. He said the AMNOG law was unparalleled elsewhere, and imposed a complex new regulatory mechanism to assess the added benefit of new pharmaceutical products entering the German market, linking future net prices to the outcomes of this assessment.

Dr Lechleiter offered to help build a new level of trust between the biopharmaceutical industry and government health care regulators, saying that collaboration can harness innovation to help meet growing health care demands within increasingly constrained budgets, create an environment where biopharmaceutical innovation can thrive, and achieve victories on behalf of the people who are counting on medical advances to live longer healthier lives.