G-BA head: 'Too much innovation' in Germany

At a drug pricing policy meeting Friday in Lund, Sweden, Germany's Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) Chairman Rainer Hess said, "We are not against innovation. We have too much 'innovation' in Germany, and we must lower overcapacity." G-BA spokesperson Kai Fortelka told BioCentury Hess meant not everything called innovative actually is. "When you're talking about overcapacity, that means that you have to separate the wheat from the chaff," said Fortelka.

The country's Statutory Health Insurance Funds Association (GKV-Spitzenverband) made a similar comment last week after Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH (Ingelheim, Germany) decided to break off pricing talks for diabetes drug Trajenta linagliptin because the proposed price was too low. GKV-Spitzenverband spokesperson Florian Lanz told BioCentury German patients would not suffer from unavailability of Trajenta. "There are already very many products available to treat diabetes which doctors may prescribe," Lanz said (see BioCentury Extra, April 27). ...