European countries squeeze drug prices to stop health care spending growth

Reuters: More European countries are trying to limit what they pay for drugs in an attempt to control "runaway" health spending. "Concerns about the European pharmaceuticals market are increasing just as anxieties over U.S. healthcare reforms have abated, casting a shadow over Big Pharma's results season." Countries such as Greece, Spain and Germany are slashing prices they pay for drugs, with more likely in 2011. Pharmaceutical companies are warning in their earnings reports that the reduction in pay for the drugs could affect their bottom lines. "Smaller drug firms heavily exposed to western Europe — like Germany's Bayer and Merck KGaA, Spanish group Almirall and Belgium's UCB — are seen as most at risk, but the big players will not escape unscathed" (Hirschler, 7/21).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.