Health committee  Dear members of the Standing Committee on Health, thank you for the opportunity, on behalf of our Minister of Health, Edith Schippers, to present to you today. It's an honour to give you some insight into the Dutch system today for pricing and reimbursement of outpatient pharmace

Health committee  Yes. I think in our system, we do have—

Health committee  Yes, okay. When the new products come to market and when they're up for reimbursements, especially in the out-patient sector, we rely on the HTA assessment. We look at the cost-effectiveness. It's not an absolute criterion, but it's an important measure to use, for instance, wi

Health committee  I don't have the figures on how many drugs are being reimbursed, but basically each drug that has a therapeutic benefit is reimbursed.

Health committee  I think there are thousands covered, or something like that, so it's a wide array.

Health committee  What I said was that, of the total number of prescriptions in the outpatient sector, 74% of the products that are being prescribed to patients are generic, and that they take up 16.8% of the total cost in the outpatient sector.

Health committee  It is 17 million.

Health committee  Do you mean in the Netherlands?

Health committee  The Dutch system is a bit different. There is a nominal premium that the insured pay towards their health insurance. I've counted it, and it depends a little bit on the insurance company, but I think it's about 110 euro per month. This is the monthly nominal fee that the insured

Health committee  I don't have right here the actual expenditure figure towards health insurance. It's not actually the pharmaceutical program that is specifically funded. It's a general funding of the national health insurance scheme that's being funded. However, I can get that figure if you wan

Health committee  The National Health Care Institute of the Netherlands is more or less a scientific body that does the health technology assessment. It basically advises the minister on adding certain drugs to the formulary and the reimbursement. They assess the drug. They also do a cost-effectiv

Health committee  Yes, it is.

Health committee  I would say the same. We're slightly above average when it comes to total expenditure on health care. In the European Union when it comes the monopoly products, looking at the external reference price of these products, I would say that our prices are average within the European

Health committee  I think it's a combination of the responsibilities and the drivers in the system. You could say that trying to regulate the market to have obligatory insurance with obligations for insurance companies but also incentives for them to keep their premiums at an affordable level whil

Health committee  I agree with what was said. In our system we have the freedom of choice for the prescriber; there are thus plenty of options for the prescriber to prescribe whatever he or she feels is necessary for the patient. It's not as if there have been companies leaving the markets, with