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HEALTH

Berlin aims to end big pharma’s price monopoly

Germany's government moved on Tuesday to break drug makers' grip on prices with a bill aimed at saving the creaking health care system about €2 billion a year.

Published: 29 June 2010 16:38 CEST
Berlin aims to end big pharma's price monopoly
Photo: DPA

Currently, drug makers are able to name any price they wish for as long as a medicine is under patent, but now the firms will have to do more to prove that a drug offers benefits over what is already on the market.

The change will also force the firms to negotiate prices with Germany’s many health insurers, which are on course to run up an €11 billion deficit next year.

The move is part of a planned root-and-branch reform of German healthcare by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s eight-month-old coalition as it seeks to cut spending and achieve a balanced budget by 2016.

Earlier this month she unveiled more than €80 billion worth of spending cuts, but plans on where exactly money will be saved remain vague and she has ruled out raising taxes.

The bill is due to go before parliament later this summer and the government hopes it will take effect by the end of the year.

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HEALTH

Lengthy waiting times at Danish hospitals not going away yet: minister

Danish Minister for the Interior and Health Sophie Løhde has warned that, despite increasing activity at hospitals, it will be some time before current waiting lists are reduced.

Published: 10 May 2023 15:09 CEST
Lengthy waiting times at Danish hospitals not going away yet: minister

The message comes as Løhde was set to meet with officials from regional health authorities on Wednesday to discuss the progress of an acute plan for the Danish health system, launched at the end of last year in an effort to reduce a backlog of waiting times which built up during the coronavirus crisis.

An agreement with regional health authorities on an “acute” spending plan to address the most serious challenges faced by the health services agreed in February, providing 2 billion kroner by the end of 2024.

READ ALSO: What exactly is wrong with the Danish health system?

The national organisation for the health authorities, Danske Regioner, said to newspaper Jyllands-Posten earlier this week that progress on clearing the waiting lists was ahead of schedule.

Some 245,300 operations were completed in the first quarter of this year, 10 percent more than in the same period in 2022 and over the agreed number.

Løhde said that the figures show measures from the acute plan are “beginning to work”.

“It’s positive but even though it suggests that the trend is going the right way, we’re far from our goal and it’s important to keep it up so that we get there,” she said.

“I certainly won’t be satisfied until waiting times are brought down,” she said.

“As long as we are in the process of doing postponed operations, we will unfortunately continue to see a further increase [in waiting times],” Løhde said.

“That’s why it’s crucial that we retain a high activity this year and in 2024,” she added.

Although the government set aside 2 billion kroner in total for the plan, the regional authorities expect the portion of that to be spent in 2023 to run out by the end of the summer. They have therefore asked for some of the 2024 spending to be brought forward.

Løhde is so far reluctant to meet that request according to Jyllands-Posten.

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