Germany, UK and Simvastatin
ResearchPosted on rand.org 2011Published in: England and Germany in Europe – What Lessons Can We Learn from Each Other? / Klusen, N., Verheyen, F, and Wagner, C. Beiträge zum Gesundheitsmanagement, 32 (Baden-Baden, Germany : Nomos Verlag, 2011), Chapter 1, p. 11-26
We examine how the UK and German health care systems responded to a major cost-saving innovation: the availability of generic simvastatin, a cholesterol-lowering drug. In the German Social Health Insurance, the generic's entry reduced sales volumes for both branded simvastatin (Zocor) and a close substitute, branded atorvastatin (Lipitor/Sortis). In UK, only the sales of branded simvastatin fell whereas the sales of atorvastatin were mostly unaffected. We trace these experiences to institutional differences in the two health care systems and to the structure of patient cost-sharing in particular.
This publication is part of the RAND external publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.
RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.
