Professor Juergen Windeler has been appointed director of Germany’s Institute for Quality and Efficiency (IQWiG), succeeding Dr Peter Sawicki.
IQWiG is Germany’s health technology assessment (HTA) body, and is expected to take a central role in the current debate over how to save money on the country’s health care spending.
Windeler’s appointment by IQWiG’s board of trustees earlier this month is expected to be confirmed shortly by the Federal Health Ministry. He will start work in September.
The contract of the previous incumbent, Peter Sawicki, was not extended in somewhat controversial circumstances when it came up for renewal earlier this year. He had been a strong critic of the pharmaceutical industry.
Windeler is an expert on evidence-based medicine, and since 2004 has been deputy managing director and chief surgeon of the medical service of the Federation of Leading Health Insurance Companies (MDS), based in Essen, Germany.
He is said to have an “assertive and independent” personality, and has already commented to a German magazine that there are far too many medicines marketed and reimbursed by public health insurers in the country.
John Davis (j.davis@elsevier.com)
