Medicines: Pharmacists' Association continues to see supply bottlenecks

The bottlenecks were related to the fact that production is increasingly taking place outside of Europe. "Germany used to be the world's pharmacy; now the world's pharmacy is in China or India. And if factories there experience production problems, this immediately impacts the supply in Europe and Germany," says Preis.

Last year, Germany experienced shortages of, among other things, antibiotic syrups and medications containing the active ingredient tamoxifen, which are used to treat breast cancer, for example. The health insurance company AOK responded by demanding that stockpiles of even more medications be built up. Whether this will achieve anything is controversial.