Pharmaceutical industry against medication catalog

BPI warns against standardized „Cookbook medicine“

12/09/2011

The Federal Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry (BPI) opposes the planned introduction of a medication catalog based on the model of the Federal Association of German Pharmacists Associations (ABDA) and the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV). According to the plans of the black and yellow federal government, the medication catalog should contain strict guidelines for the economic selection of active ingredients and should bring about a significant improvement in the safety of medicinal products.

For the BPI, however, the inclusion of a medication catalog into the supply structure law, as envisaged in the amendment by the CDU and FDP, is „Another step on the way to standardized cookbook medicine“. According to the current press release of the Pharmaverbandes, the proposals of ABDA and KBV are incomprehensible. The BPI seeks support from the doctors and urges them to preserve their freedom of therapy. However, financial interests are likely to be behind the criticism, as many pharmaceutical manufacturers are threatening to lose considerable revenues when introducing a corresponding medication catalog.

The medication catalog proposed by KBV and ADBA is intended to prescribe certain types of active ingredients for the treatment of patients as a type of positive list, with drugs that are not listed in the catalog no longer being included in the normal prescriptions. In addition, the amendment by the CDU and FDP exempts the parties to the agreement on the exclusive use of active substances instead of certain preparations. In the future, the medication catalog will not only improve the safety of medicinal products but also contain guidelines for the cost-effective selection of active ingredients. According to the plans of the politicians, the relatively narrow framework conditions of the medication catalog will make the complicated discount agreements obsolete and the pharmaceutical costs will be noticeably reduced. If the previous discount agreements were already a thorn in the side of the pharmaceutical manufacturers, they now face massive sales losses should their products not be listed on the positive list. The criticism of the BPI is correspondingly clear.

As an important argument against the planned medication catalog, the Pharmaverband mentions possible impairment of the quality of care. The patients would be treated only by list in the future, where „incomprehensible (is) how physicians and pharmacists can come up with the idea, in times when it is clear to everyone that medicine is individualized, now wanting to fix the overall answer for each patient“, criticized Professor dr. Barbara Sickmüller, Deputy Chief Executive of the BPI. For Sickmüller it is „even less understandable, when politics falls for such proposals.“ With the current press release, the BPI is also looking in the medical profession for allies who speak out against the planned medication catalog.

Criticism of possible impairment of the quality of care
Although the concern of the doctors to abolish the required in the context of the previous procedure performance audit, quite understandable, however „not if the quality of care suffers and the doctor gives up his task of treating the individual needs of the patients.“ Since the medication catalog is based essentially on economic criteria, it can be used with this „in no way“ achieve the desired improvement in drug delivery, criticized the deputy chief executive of the BPI. (Fp)

Picture: Andrea Damm