Health Minister Lauterbach presented the new medical research law. He postpones the abolition of homeopathy as a health insurance benefit.

Homeopathy versus conventional medicine remains a point of contention Photo: Bernhard Classen/imago

SEDAN taz | Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) presented the new draft of the Medical Research Act on Wednesday. The planned law had already been previously discussed in the federal Cabinet. With the Medical Research Act, the Federal Ministry of Health, together with the Federal Ministry of the Environment, wants to strengthen Germany as a location for drug production and research.

To make Germany more attractive to pharmaceutical companies again, it is necessary to simplify and speed up the approval of studies and reduce bureaucracy. Lauterbach presented a first draft of the law in December as part of a large-scale pharmaceutical strategy.

With the new law, it is expected that the approval procedures for clinical trials, as well as the approval procedures for drugs and radiation applications, will be significantly faster in the future. Investments by big pharmaceutical companies in Germany have so far been “incredibly unattractive”, but that will change with the new law. It should soon be possible to review and approve a study throughout Germany in just 26 days.

To the prospect of more pharmaceutical companies investing in Germany with the Medical Research Act, Lauterbach also associates an economic policy advantage and the hope of new jobs in the pharmaceutical industry. Research at universities would also benefit from the “enormous acceleration,” and the Medical Research Act is a boon for universities. The German University Hospital Association welcomes the passage of the bill and says it “will send a positive signal to Germany as a research location.”

Criticism of “secret prices”

After the introduction of the first bill in January, several state medical associations and the German Federation of Trade Unions sharply criticized the project to create a central federal ethics commission that would replace state ethics commissions. The Ministry of Health has at least partially taken this criticism into account: the individual ethics committees of the federal states should continue to function. Lauterbach stressed that they want to continue relying on experienced specialists from those countries.

However, an independent “Specialized Ethics Committee for particularly complex or urgent procedures” should still be created. Lauterbach rejected criticism about the lack of independence of said commission, whose members should be appointed, among others, by the Minister of Health, and referred to a similar approach in the Permanent Vaccination Commission (Stiko).

Even after the revision of the first draft of the bill, the so-called “secret prices” of drugs remain a major point of criticism of the Medical Research Law. In the future, the results of price negotiations between health insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies will no longer be made public. According to critics, these “confidential reimbursement amounts” would result in additional costs for taxpayers and additional bureaucratic work for hospitals and health insurance companies.

On Tuesday it became known that the removal of homeopathic treatments as a health insurance benefit announced by Lauterbach is no longer included in the corresponding bill. The minister referred to the need for a debate within the coalition, but reiterated his rejection of homeopathy.