22 April 2016 - The move would curtail a lucrative, one-year amnesty from the country’s otherwise strict price controls.

The German government is considering limiting the price that drug companies can charge the country’s health care system for their latest medicines—a move that would curtail a lucrative, one-year amnesty from the country’s otherwise strict price controls.

Germany enjoys one of the world’s most generous universal health-insurance systems. Used by nine out of 10 Germans, it is among only a few in the world that provide members with unrestricted access to the best and newest drugs on the market, regardless of cost.

It funds this by collecting what is effectively a payroll tax, based on an individual’s earnings, which is then used to reimburse state health insurers. Those insurers negotiate discounts with pharmaceutical firms, using the German market’s heft—it is the world’s fourth-largest drugs market by revenue—as leverage.

For more details, go to: http://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-mulls-limiting-prices-drug-firms-can-charge-to-health-system-1461307437