EU Procurement Reform Pushes Germany to End Lowest-Price Drug Deals
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Berlin – September 15, 2026 -- The European Commission is redrawing public procurement rules to treat supply security as a strategic asset, pressuring Germany to overhaul how statutory health insurers award pharmaceutical rebate contracts.
Brussels Moves to Rank Quality and Resilience Above Lowest Price
The Commission's draft directive would require public tenders to be awarded based on the best price-quality ratio rather than price alone, explicitly allowing supply security and resilience to factor into contract awards. The proposal also permits splitting large contracts into smaller lots to reduce dependency on single suppliers and diversify supply chains. For strategically sensitive procurement categories, the draft opens the door to preferential treatment for European or trade-aligned suppliers.