Headache for Germany

Once known as the pharmacy to the world, Germany now has its work cut out to supply enough medicines to its own citizens.

The globalisation-driven shift in drug making from Europe’s biggest economy to cheaper locations wasn’t too much of an issue until the coronavirus crisis, when India imposed export curbs on products including paracetamol.

That over-the-counter painkiller was first clinically used in Germany, which dominated the industry before World War I. India’s move jolted officials in Berlin and Brussels awake to the risk of pharmaceutical shortages.

Their challenge, now being prioritised by Germany in its current presidency of the European Union, is how to ensure a supply of so-called generics — cheap drugs from painkillers to antibiotics whose patents have expired — when few companies in the region make them anymore.

“We have delivery problems in Germany and in Europe generally — and they’re getting worse,” said Mathias Arnold, vice president of the country’s ABDA organisation of pharmacists, who runs a pharmacy in Halle, in eastern Germany. While India’s ban was in force only a few weeks, what would we have done if it had lasted for half a year? We’d have had a really serious problem.” The generics business is one of extreme price pressures. In Europe’s state health-care systems, an antibiotic pill can retail for less than a piece of chewing gum. — Bloomberg.