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Survey Shows Vast Majority of U.S. Doctors Place Higher Value on Medicines vs. German Health Authorities
European-style Price Controls Could Limit Patient Access to Treatment.
A new national survey of U.S. physicians shows that they overwhelmingly disagree with the clinical value judgments made by the German health authority (G-BA) as part of their government pricing regime, with the vast majority of U.S. physicians stating medicines offer more clinical value for patients than Germany’s assessment. The findings raise significant concern about proposals to adopt European-style drug pricing, such as the so-called Most Favored Nation proposal, and the impact it could have on limiting American patients’ timely access to important treatments for chronic diseases including asthma, COPD, and diabetes.
Germany uses benefit assessments to determine what medicines patients are able to access and when. According to the survey, U.S. physicians overwhelmingly rejected the G-BA’s negative assessments of several chronic disease treatments, and the numbers speak loudly:
99%
said that COPD medications had more clinical value than Germany’s assessment
98%
indicated greater clinical benefit for diabetes medicines
99%
rated asthma therapies as more clinically valuable than Germany
U.S. physicians say these treatments offer real clinical benefit, and that foreign assessments like those from Germany’s G-BA fail to capture what truly matters to patients.
U.S. physicians also stated that patient-centered outcomes like patient quality of life and treatment convenience are important when determining the value of a medication. These outcomes include:
Addressing unmet medical needs
Supporting a patient’s ability to work
Minimizing treatment burden
Extending life long enough for the next treatment to become available
These critical factors are often devalued or ignored in foreign pricing frameworks.
Based on these perspectives of U.S. doctors, LMDDAN is urging lawmakers to reject proposals to import foreign cost assessments and protect access to life-saving treatments. Pricing models should reflect the needs of American patients — not the cost-cutting decisions of other countries.
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