Patent-protected drugs are one of the main cost drivers for statutory health insurance. Despite a relatively low prescription frequency, they account for almost half of all pharmaceutical costs due to their very high prices. This is why the German health insurer Techniker Krankenkassen (TK) and the University of Bremen published a study applying AIM’s fair pricing calculator on a basket of medicines in the country and found that actual prices are twice to 13 times the amount of the fair price that TK calculated.

For instance, for Spinraza, fair prices calculated with AIM’s fair price model parameters range from 26,251.30 € to 30,024.35 € depending on prevalence, while actual costs in Germany were 304 640€ at market entry and at 256 610€ today.

TK calculated that if used, AIM’s fair price calculator could yield yearly 13 billion € of savings in Germany. Thomas Ballast, Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Techniker Krankenkasse, commented: “Despite highly regulated markets, the prices of new medicines are constantly rising. The AMNOG procedure has so far not been able to stop this development adequately. The AIM fair price calculator shows that it is possible to calculate a different price that counteracts the current trend.”

TK concludes in their study that the fair pricing calculator is an enrichment in the discussion on fair prices of medicines and should be seen as additional information for price negotiations, as well as an incentive for manufacturers to create transparency on research and production costs.

The study is available here: https://www.aim-mutual.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/TK_AIM-Fair-Pricing-Calculator-EN_Rev.pdf