Billions of savings potential in drug

With medicines could be saved two billion

08/20/2014

A recent report concludes that a consistent review of the costs and benefits of medicines could save up to € 2 billion. Expensive medicines could be replaced by cheaper generics.

Save two billion euros
A consistent review of the benefits of existing medicines can save significant costs. From the technicians health insurance (TK) goes out according to a message from the news agency dpa. Two billion euros could be saved by a so-called inventory market review and the replacement of unnecessarily expensive drugs by equivalent, cheaper generic drugs. This is the result of an inventory market report, which was developed with the support of TK and wants to introduce the cashier today.

Health insurance and insured persons are charged
Health insurances and, ultimately, insured persons would continue to be burdened with expenditure on medicines whose added value has not been proven by the political decision not to review the existing market. As the report goes on to say, it fails to meet the objective of a qualitative and economic supply of medicines. According to the report, the report evaluated 17 drugs on their added value compared to existing therapeutic options.

New drugs often without benefits
These are preparations that were not uncontroversial in the past, including newer antidiabetic drugs and rheumatism drugs. None of the drugs examined had been without complaints. Especially the evaluated antidiabetics had no advantages over the proven therapies. Also scientists around the health expert Professor dr. Gerd Glaeske from the University of Bremen came to the conclusion in the Innovation Report 2014, presented in April, that new drugs are rarely of better benefit. (Ad)