German pharma companies demand changes in drugs evaluation process

Germany's association of research-based pharmaceutical companies, the VFA, has called for an overhaul of the drugs evaluation process in the country, including a review of the role of The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG).

VFA director general, Cornelia Yzer said the country needed proper cost-effectiveness evaluation of drugs and that the work of IQWiG needed to be redefined.

"Until now the German healthcare system has guaranteed that approved drugs are reimbursed and therefore available for patients," she told reporters at a press briefing on Wednesday. "We must safeguard the access to innovative drugs," said Yzer, who also called for deregulation and direct agreements between drug manufacturers and the compulsory health insurers.

"At the time of launch, a drug has proved its efficacy, quality and safety in the course of the approval process but it still has to face the practical test of every day healthcare."

She said VFA companies wanted effective benefit evaluations which could prove the efficiency of a treatment under daily conditions and at the same time help to round out the safety profiles of new drugs. She added they were opposed to "the second appraisal of the effectiveness of drugs, as is currently undertaken by IQWiG, which merely duplicated the approval process ... This guarantees neither transparency nor the compliance of internationally accepted standards."

In addition, IGWiG's work is focussed mainly on the evaluation of drugs rather than taking a broader look at the healthcare system as a whole, said Yzer.