GERMAN INDUSTRY'S "MASSIVE LOSSES"

The year of 1992 was "the last year in the history of the German drug industry when the world was in order," according to Hans-Rudiger Vogel, executive director of the drug industry association, the BPI.

In its business with the public-sector health funds in first-half 1993 the industry has reported "massive sales losses." provisional BPI figures indicate that in western germany, doctors prescribed drugs worth 10 billion Deutschemarks ($6 billion) during the period - two billion marks below the drug budget level. Even in the eastern states, where doctors' incomes and drug expenditures are not yet tied to budgets, spending on drugs fell 14% to 1.1 billion marks.

Prof Vogel believes that if the trend of the first six months continues throughout the year, health fund pharmaceutical expenditures will be down 7 billion marks ($4.1 billion) on 1992, when the funds spent 27 billion marks on drugs. He says the main reason for the "dramatic decline" in drug deliveries is the "completely changed prescribing attitude" of doctors, who are prescribing both fewer and cheaper drugs in the wake of the health Structure Law. Prof Vogel fears that, as a result, the patient will no longer get the benefit of innovative therapy.