Pharmacists repeatedly report supply bottlenecks for important medicines, such as pain relievers or thyroid medicines. The Bundestag has now decided on countermeasures.
Berlin (dpa) - In the fight against supply bottlenecks in medicines, the Bundestag passed amendments to the Medicines Act. In future, pharmaceutical companies may be obliged by the authorities to provide information about stocks, production and sales volume of certain medicines. In the event of bottlenecks, it can be ordered that companies or pharmaceutical wholesalers have to stock large quantities of these preparations.
The ABDA pharmacist association warns time and again about delivery bottlenecks for common medicines such as thyroid medicines, medicines for gout or ibuprofen pain relievers. There are many causes. Active ingredients are often produced in other countries, such as China or India, for cost reasons. If production is temporarily stopped there or a batch is not released for quality reasons, this also affects large manufacturers in Europe.
An advisory board is to be set up at the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) to monitor the supply situation at all times. The BfArM is to publish a constantly updated list of so-called active and critical active ingredients on its website.
Important for patients: According to the law, should there be delivery difficulties with certain inexpensive medicines, pharmacies can also dispense the more expensive medicines with the same active ingredient, the patient does not pay anything extra. The health insurance then bears the additional costs.
"Patients rightly expect to receive urgently needed medication quickly. That is why the federal government will intervene more in the distribution of medication than before," said Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU).
Together with the amendments to the Medicinal Products Act, the Bundestag also passed a reform to reorganize the financial relationships of the statutory health insurance funds. The so-called "Faire-Kassen-Law" is intended to realign the financial equalization between the funds, and there are also new rules of conduct for competition among themselves. The health spokeswoman for the Union faction Karin Maag (CDU) said it should prevent the health insurance companies from only looking after the young and healthy.
