Will German pharma reform be watered down?

The German government’s health reforms have been widely seen as a setback for the pharma industry (The Pharma Letters, September 17 and August 6). Yet proposed changes to the legislation over the past few days could soften the blow. “The coalition has bowed to the pressure of the pharma lobby,” says the Die Welt newspaper.

One of the main changes in Health Minister Philip Roesler’s reform package is the increase in the mandatory discount pharmaceutical companies must offer health insurers from 6% to 16%. The other concerns an official probe to gauge whether a new drug that is on the market is an improvement on existing treatments, and this is the subject of the latest furore.

According to the original legislation, a (politically independent) committee of doctors and health insurers is to make this assessment within a year of the drug being approved, and if it decides that a drug adds value, then the manufacturer and the health insurers negotiate a price. If not, it will not be bought and prescribed by state health insurers, and will be priced for the general market according to similar drugs.