Association of Pharmaceutical Research Companies (VFA): Pharmaceutical Industry Calls for Closer Involvement in Integrated Health Care Models

The pharmaceutical industry wants to counteract its image as cost drivers. „We are capable of doing more than just charging prices for medicinal products“, Hagen Pfunder, head of the Association of Pharmaceutical Research Companies (VFA), emphasized at the association’s general meeting. He stressed the contributions of the pharmaceutical companies to the economic development in Germany.

Pfundner’s vision for the pharmaceutical industry is that they must be able to contribute to the service landscape without being accused of being greedy. A major problem is the concern of doctors regarding their freedom of prescription whenever a pharmaceutical company joins an integrated health care model.

Pfunder wishes for politicians who advance new co-operations between doctors, insurers, science and industry rather than automatically challenging them.

Comment: Transparency is a necessary prerequisite for establishing new integrated health care models between pharmaceutical companies, insurers and doctors. For this purpose the European Association EFPIA of the pharmaceutical industry has already announced that financial support for doctors and medical research institutions will be disclosed in order to counter possible reservations. Equivalent to the US model, the association wants to implement a „transparency codex“ until 2015.

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