The next head of Germany’s medicines assessment body says up to nine in ten drugs currently being prescribed and sold in the country are pointless and should no longer be paid for by the public health system.
Last week Jürgen Windeler was named successor to the outgoing chief of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Healthcare (IQWiG), the body which conducts cost-benefit assessments on drugs and treatments on behalf of the government.
It recommends which treatments should be covered by statutory health insurers, and decisions made by the health ministry on that advice can be worth hundreds of millions to pharmaceutical companies.
This makes the head of IQWiG a very controversial position, as demonstrated by the fate of its first holder, Peter Sawicki.
His contract was not renewed, ending his tenure there this summer, in a move widely considered as the new government exerting influence against him for his open criticism of the pharma industry.
Although he was accused of irregularities in his expenses, there was widespread uproar over his effective dismissal, with allegations that the government and Health Minister Philipp Rösler were pandering to the pharma lobby.
