Pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement schemes vary widely across Europe. The ostensible objective of these schemes is ensuring that those medicines required to maintain high levels of public health are made accessible to the public. In practice, however, these systems are designed to restrict access to medicines and categories of medicines that are not reimbursed.

The system of controlling price and reimbursement levels has spread to a number of European countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Denmark. Eastern European economies in transition, and many other developing countries which face considerable challenges in reforming their health systems, have considered or are considering implementing similar systems .

Valentin Petkantchin of L'institut économique Molinari (IEM) is the author of a forthcoming paper addressing the wider picture. Focusing on Germany, he will look at the implications for European patients of this increasing use of reference pricing, as well as the impact on European R&D.

Valentin Petkantchin holds a Ph.D. in Economics (Economic analysis of institutions) and a Master's Degree in Media communication and economics training from the University of Aix-Marseille III (France). Between 1996 and 2003 he was a fellow researcher at the Center of Economic Analysis and a lecturer in economics at the Applied Economics Faculty and at the Law Faculty in that same university.

Petkantchin also wrote weekly columns between 1999 and 2002 for Libres.org, an electronic newspaper offering an economic perspective on public policy and current affairs in France. He is the author of numerous scientific publications and research working papers on various subjects and has worked for several years with the Institute for Humane Studies-Europe and the Institute for Economic Studies-France.