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People suffering from asthma, diabetes and heart disease in Germany’s
five new eastern states started the new year with a drugs shortage. A boycott
by Germany’s biggest pharmaceuticals companies meant that local pharmacies
could not fill many of their prescriptions.

The boycott began on 1 January, when Germany’s pharmaceuticals companies
– Bayer, Beiersdorf, Madaus, Merck and Schering – halted deliveries to what
was East Germany. The firms were protesting against a clause in the reunification
treaty which demanded that they offer a 55 per cent discount in the new
eastern states.

The idea was to ease the financial burden on Germany’s new, but already
impoverished, public health insurance companies. Health insurance is compulsory
in Germany. In the new states most people rely on the public health schemes.

As patients queued up for the remaining supplies of insulin, heart,
stomach and asthma preparations, some East German pharmacies closed their
doors in a protest strike. Germany’s minister of labour, Norbert Blum and
representatives from the manufacturers and the pharmacies met to negotiate
an end to the boycott.

The negotiators announced that from 1 April at the earliest, medication
will be sold at the full ‘West’ German price. The pharmaceuticals companies
will also top up the coffers of the insurance companies to help cover the
costs of the drugs.

Pharmacists remain sceptical about receiving supplies before April.
‘Until then, we don’t know if the manufacturers will continue to supply
us under the terms of the reunification treaty,’ said Gerd Fiedler of the
pharmacists’ association of Sachsen-Anhalt.