VALUE OF OTC MEDICINES IN EUROPE

Whenever the value of the over-the-counter medicines market has to be criticized by a representative of the health insurance system the link between the prescription market and OTC moves to a central point of view, according to Karl-Heinz Schoenbach, director of the contract department at Germany's National Association of Company Sickness Funds.

Traditionally health insurers don't reimburse drugs that are not prescribed by a panel doctor, he told delegates at the recent World Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Federation meeting in Acapulco, Mexico (Marketletters November 8 and 15). But there are lots of problems in financing the increasing number of prescriptions written.

At present, Mr Schoenbach said, the scope of pharmaceutical cost containment strategies in Europe is wide, targeting not only price but other determinants of drug spending. Faced with further stress on their national health care budgets, governments and experts in European countries have concluded that, as a tool for restraining drug spending, controls on prices alone are not really sufficient.