pharmaceutical manufacturing industry complains at a high level
The previously well-paid by the savings industry fears rounds of government revenues
By Frank Seidlitz
Dusseldorf - There are just a few months ago, was the world of private health insurance (PHI) is still intact. Bursting Association officials insisted that their system is the only healthy and functioning health care system in Germany was the PKV and the innovation engine of the health system. " From a growth industry in which about ten percent of citizens are fully insured, was the speech. For many it was inconceivable that the private insurance companies call once the state to help them slip away because the costs. But since last week is just the reality.
After the Federal Government has adopted an extensive economy package for statutory insurance, will now also benefit the private insurance competition like this. The Government therefore plans to implement regulations from the economy package for the state health insurance for the private health insurance in certain areas. The aim is a price reduction for drugs apply to both insurance models. With the new rules would Federal Health Minister Philippe Rösler (FDP), PHI relieve again by 500 million € per year. Losers would be the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. The atmosphere is therefore more than irritated. "We will be in Germany for the cash cow of a failed health policy," laments, therefore, a board member of a European pharmaceutical manufacturing group.
High stress
The new round savings in health care: pharmaceutical manufacturing associations and industry experts have been warning against the considerable burdens on the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. "Nothing is for pharmaceutical manufacturing companies which invest annually in Germany alone, five billion euros in research and development, more important than reliability of forecasts," said Cornelia Yzer, director of the association of research-based pharmaceutical manufacturing companies (VFA), the main mouthpiece of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. "Already the arbitrary increase in the mandatory rebate to 16 percent, which will burden the company with € 1.2 billion annually, was therefore a fatal signal." The pharmaceutical manufacturing association sees investment in research in Germany at risk, who in the last ten years anyway less important for the industry. "If the drug market is being restructured, it takes a stringent approach. But please also about due process and public policy proper solutions," said Yzer.
But the savings in state health insurance take the pill industry with more than one billion euros per year. The discharge of the PKV is proposing well again with a further 500 million Euros to the price - and then only in Germany. Worldwide, it looks similar. Hardly a developed country in which the industry is currently faced with savings in health care.
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The revenue losses meet the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry at an inopportune time. is deleted while in the national healthcare systems more and saved the companies get in the search for new business opportunities behind: Have been brought about from 1988 to 1992 still 214 new drugs to market, from 2004 to 2008 there were only 144th "The worldwide cuts in health care in the last decade have also led that the pharmaceutical companies have adopted many therapeutic areas and are only concentrated in a few fields of research," the renowned pharmaceutical expert Michael Klingler says of the consulting firm RSVP from Wiesbaden.
Few areas of research
Ten years ago the industry would have the Top20 had a broader base for research-intensive medication, so Klingler. Today, however, the trend is clearly going to be focusing on a few fields of research. "Looking up, the patients."
More and more companies are withdrawing from the study of therapeutic areas that are not featured more lucrative. This affects approximately 7000-8000 of approximately 30 000 known diseases. Only for the least, there are long-term research projects. In the EU alone, 30 million people suffer from these so-called "rare diseases".
Yet the pharmaceutical manufacturing companies earn well in the transaction with the diseases. Operating margins of 30 percent and more are standard. But the economic pressure is growing. Many pharmaceutical manufacturers are therefore looking for several years in the way of mergers with competitors or their acquisition. A few years ago, the price pressure resulted in the German industry for the lowest drug copies - so-called generic drugs - already an oligopoly situation: Hexal, Ratiopharm and dictated in Germany not only prices, but also who can distribute the medication. End of the 90s, the three major suppliers Hexal, Ratiopharm and Stada just a market share of 30 percent. 2004 the proportion had increased to more than 50 percent. Today Hexal and Ratiopharm have themselves long since bought out by international pharmaceutical companies.
And also hunts in the traditional pharmaceutical manufacturing firms despite financial crisis a billion over the other attack - the managers deep into the fund: In January, the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis against a 50-billion-dollar offer for U.S. rival Alcon. Previously, the Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturing giant Roche, about 44 billion dollars for the U.S. biotech company had paid for Genentech, Pfizer secured in the spring of 2009 for just over 70 billion dollar U.S. rival Wyeth. A few large companies will specify the sound future in the industry. And what does it mean that the government has been hit in recent years. She looked in the negotiations for the purchase of vaccines against swine flu to a market power of only three providers and ultimately had to accept prices that were required of companies. This was just a taste of what could blossom of politics in the coming years by drug oligopolies.
Prescription is more expensive
The new savings rounds will drive this trend, even in Germany. "Actual numbers are not yet on the table," says a German pharmaceutical manufacturing company. "Therefore we can not estimate the exact financial consequences." In the short term, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, the sales losses of all conservation measures, the federal government of more than € 1.5 billion can not be put away easily. Although compensate pharmaceutical giants such as Bayer Corporation, the burden of over 15 million euros in business in Germany because of their size, it looks at other companies do not look so good. "I can well imagine that some companies consider price adjustments in the field of prescription drugs in order to offset the revenue losses. But that can not make any pharmaceutical company because of their portfolio," says management consultant Klingler. In effect: a firm will be more expensive prescription drugs, prescription drugs cheaper. Ultimately, the patient would be asked to foot the bill.