“Thank you for the excellent work you all do here"

The German Federal Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach, addressed around 150 employees of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) who attended a meeting with him: "You all make a valuable contribution to efficient, more evidence-based health care in Germany. Without your good work, we would run the risk of new treatments being introduced into the health care system too quickly and without careful evaluation. This does not only apply to drugs. Thank you for the excellent work you all do here.”

IQWiG's future is just beginning

IQWiG will celebrate its 20th anniversary this autumn. During his visit to Cologne, Karl Lauterbach recalled that, as an advisor to the then Federal Minister of Health, Ulla Schmidt, he was directly involved in the establishment of IQWiG in 2004: "Our basic idea at the time was to build something that would act as a kind of heart chamber for evidence-based medicine in the transfer of new scientific findings into the health care of people with statutory health insurance. This has been successful. IQWiG has developed very well, but is still in its infancy. Medical progress will continue to accelerate. There will be more and more new procedures and more and more new drugs - IQWiG's future is just beginning. Those who work at IQWiG are fortunate to have a meaningful and future-proof job for society.”

Earlier in the day, Karl Lauterbach held small expert discussions on current topics, including the European health technology assessment (HTA) of newly approved drugs and medical devices, which will start in 2025. He predicted: "IQWiG will continue to play an important role at the European level in the future and will therefore continue to grow in importance, also internationally."

IQWiG's Director, Thomas Kaiser, thanked Karl Lauterbach for his visit and for his receptiveness to IQWiG's proposals: "The Minister's appreciation of IQWiG's work was very well received by all our staff. This also applies to the support for future tasks, where we will be increasingly active in the area of evidence generation and at the European level. I would like to thank the Minister for both.”