More and more medicines are no longer available in German pharmacies. Now the Ministry of Health wants to intervene. Among other things, a storage obligation lasting several months and new price structures should remedy the situation.
According to plans by the Federal Ministry of Health, there should also be new rules for stocks as a safety buffer to avoid bottlenecks in important medicines. In order to absorb short-term disruptions in the supply chain or short-term larger additional requirements, “an obligation to store goods for several months” will be introduced, according to a draft bill for a planned law.
According to this, health insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry should generally agree on a “continuous, supply-related stocking” of certain medicines in discount agreements – in Germany or the EU and for a quantity that is delivered on average in three months. The draft follows key points that department head Karl Lauterbach presented at the end of last year. They also envisage new price rules to better secure the supply, which are intended to make deliveries to Germany more economically attractive for drug manufacturers. In addition, European producers should generally have a stronger say.
There have recently been delivery bottlenecks for off-patent medicines such as fever syrups for children, but also for preparations for adults such as antibiotics and cancer medicines. The draft also provides for “increased storage obligations for pharmacies supplying hospitals”. A more precise early warning system is to be set up in order to identify delivery bottlenecks earlier. For “reserve antibiotics” with new active ingredients, manufacturers should be able to maintain the price they quoted when they were launched. These preparations are used when conventional antibiotics are no longer effective due to resistance.
