Drug price moderation in Germany: lessons for U.S. reform efforts
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Issue brief (Commonwealth Fund)
- Author(s):
- Robinson, James C., author Ex, Patricia, author Panteli, Dimitra, author
- Contributor(s):
- Commonwealth Fund, issuing body.
- Publication:
- [New York, N.Y.] : The Commonwealth Fund, January 2020
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Drug Costs Economics, Pharmaceutical Negotiating Costs and Cost Analysis Formularies as Topic Health Care Reform -- economics Technology Assessment, Biomedical Humans Germany United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- ISSUE. Public and private payers in the United States negotiate prices with drug manufacturers but in a less structured manner than in Germany. This has led to higher prices, administrative burdens on physicians, and significant cost-sharing for patients in the United States, compared with Germany. GOALS. Describe how Germany sets drug prices and identify lessons for the United States. METHODS: Interviews with leaders in payer, policy, patient, and pharmaceutical industry organizations in Germany. KEY FINDINGS AND CONCLUSION. Germany's system, which uses centralized drug assessment and price negotiation for new drugs coupled with reference pricing for noninnovative drugs, has resulted in substantially lower drug prices compared with the United States. Germany encourages manufacturers to moderate prices of innovative drugs through positive incentives (such as immediate coverage and the ability to obtain full list price for the first year after launch) and through negative incentives (such as mandatory arbitration when price negotiations fail). In the United States, efforts to control drug spending have centered on limiting patient access. U.S. drug prices could be reduced if Medicare and private payers standardized how they evaluate the clinical benefit of a drug, translate the benefit into a price, and resolve disagreements between negotiating parties.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (7 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101761890 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101761890