German Price Accord By Funds, Pharmacies

Germany's leading health funds have agreed proposed changes to the DrugPrices Regulation with the pharmacy and wholesale federations, setting a 12% wholesale margin on products costing 108.71-1,1339.20 Deutschemarks ($61.82-$761.64) ex-factory. Wholesalers would have an extra 3% on higher-priced drugs. Currently, the 12% regime does not include a higher limit.

For ex-factory prices below 108 marks the wholesale margin would rise to 21%. Pharmacy and wholesale margins would be linked. The current 30% margin on wholesale prices over 70.31 marks would drop to 8.26% on drugs priced at over 1,063.81 marks per pack. For those costing under 70.31 marks per pack, the margin would rise on a scale of up to 68%.

To offset the pharmacy income drop caused by lower margins for high-priced drugs, the margin on prescriptions would be doubled to a maximum of 9 marks and the after-hours emergency service extra payment raised to 5 marks per item. The funds, which will forego their discount applied to every drug item, say that the changes will give pharmacists an extra 60 million marks a year. Their original aim was to cap the pharmacy margin on very expensive drugs and to reduce the incentive to prescribe and supply costly drugs.