Germany's doctors "overspent" on drugs

The German government's official report on national drug prescribing (AV-R) has concluded that doctors are prescribing new and expensive products that offer "no additional benefits" at the expense of health insurers and insured patients. The report goes on to claim that, last year, about 3.5 billion euros ($4.45 billion) could have been saved from the country's drug bill. Germany's coalition government Secretary of State for Health, Marion Caspers-Merk, denied the accuracy of the figure.

Prince controls since April "cut prices" 2%

The AV-R study is also criticized by the doctors' federation (KABV) and the German research-based drugmakers' federation (VFA). Mrs Caspers-Merk responded to claims that the drug industry's influence on physicians is "too great" and drug spending was too high, by noting that the impact of recently-introduced drug price controls, effective from April this year, had lowered drug prices 2% to September, compared with the like-period last year.