Peter Sawicki

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Peter Sawicki (born January 24, 1957 in Warsaw , Poland ) is a German doctor and medical scientist. From 2004 to 2010 he was head of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), his employment contract ended in August 2010.

Medical education

Sawicki studied human medicine in Bonn and Düsseldorf from 1978 to 1984. In 1984 he received his license to practice medicine . From 1984 to 1991 he completed further training as a specialist in internal medicine at the medical facilities of the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf . Since 1991 Sawicki has been a specialist in internal medicine and a diabetologist according to the guidelines of the German Diabetes Society.

Medical activity

From 1984 to 1991 Sawicki was an assistant doctor, from 1991 to 1997 senior physician and from 1997 to 2000 senior physician at the Clinic for Metabolic Diseases of the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. From 1991 to 2000 he was head of the outpatient department for diabetes complications. From 1992 to 1998 he held the office of spokesman for the emergency doctor group.

From 1995 until his appointment as head of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) in 2004, he was one of the editors of the pharmaceutical-critical specialist journal Arznei-Telegramm .

From 2000 to 2004, Sawicki was the director of the department for internal medicine as chief physician at the St. Franziskus Hospital in Cologne. In 2001 he founded the Institute for Evidence-Based Medicine (DIeM) in Cologne, which he headed until 2004.

Since July 2012 he has been working as a general practitioner internist in Duisburg.

Awards, Honors and Appointments

  • 1988 Award of the medical journalism prize of the SKD Foundation
  • 1989 Award of the "Supporter of Diabetic Children" award
  • 1994 Habilitation and award of the Venia Legendi for the subject of internal medicine from Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf
  • 1996 Awarded the Jühling Prize
  • 1999 professorship at the Medical Faculty of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
  • 2001 professorship at the Medical Faculty of the University of Cologne

Scientific activity

On September 1, 2004, Sawicki was appointed head of the newly founded Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) . His contract, which ended on August 31, 2010, was not renewed in January 2010; his successor was Jürgen Windeler .

Sawicki is a lecturer at the Institute for Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Cologne, led by Karl Lauterbach .

Controversy

Conflict with the pharmaceutical lobby

Sawicki's studies and the IQWiG annoyed the pharmaceutical industry several times, which several times complained to governments about him with the accusation that his critical assessment of drugs was damaging the pharmaceutical industry and its profits. For example, IQWiG judged the short-acting insulin analogues that they were no better than conventional human insulin . IQWiG also rated the long-acting insulin analogues against diabetes as negative. The study for memantine found no evidence of benefit in Alzheimer's dementia. In 2009, Sawicki also called for the publication of clinical studies, as misleading by keeping silent is not a trivial offense. The reason for this was the refusal of the manufacturer Pfizer to provide studies on three antidepressants.

Sometimes IQWiG also disappointed the health insurance companies because it found treatments that they no longer wanted to pay for as good. According to the director of the German Cochrane Center , IQWiG enjoys a high international reputation among researchers precisely because of this independence.

End of contract and accusation of inadmissible expenses

In November 2009 it became known that the new government under the CDU / CSU and FDP is planning to replace Peter Sawicki as head of IQWiG. The government's health politicians, including the CDU politicians Jens Spahn and Rolf Koschorrek , called for a realignment of IQWiG in favor of the pharmaceutical industry in their paper “Core demands on a black and yellow health policy”. Sawicki was to be replaced by a more pharmaceutical industry-friendly candidate after his contract expired in summer 2010. Two weeks after the new Federal Minister of Health, Philipp Rösler , was sworn in , the auditing firm BDO was commissioned to examine receipts for expenses and the use of the company car. This happened without a public tender, contrary to the IQWiG's rules of procedure.

On January 22nd, 2010, the board of directors and the board of trustees of IQWiG announced that Sawicki's contract would not be extended and that he would therefore be leaving office on August 31, 2010. He was accused of damaging the competitiveness of the German pharmaceutical industry by critically assessing the effectiveness of drugs. Technically, however, Sawicki could not prove any error. The official reason given for the end of the contract was financial inconsistencies with his company car. According to information leaked to the FAZ , a report by the auditing firm BDO, which was commissioned again, documented accounting errors. According to Die Welt , he is accused of repeated breaches of duty in the test report . According to the report, Sawicki leased a company car in 2006 and 2009 without consulting the Executive Board. It was also criticized that he regularly used business class on flights and had illegally reimbursed parking receipts from home and abroad. Sawicki had, however, returned the illegally approved funds and Sawicki's company car had always been properly listed in the IQWiG budget, which is drawn up by the board of directors and approved by the foundation board. A legal opinion commissioned by Sawicki comes to the conclusion that there are no violations of his service contract as a result.

Some observers see the real reason in Sawicki's overly critical attitude towards the pharmaceutical industry. In a resolution passed by the economics ministers of the federal states even before the 2009 Bundestag elections, the institute's methodology was criticized as “economically unacceptable”. Rather, it must strive for the competitiveness of domestic pharmaceutical companies. A petition from numerous doctors, addressed to the Minister of Health Rösler (FDP) and the IQWiG Board of Trustees, called for an extension of Sawicki's contract. In March 2010, Spiegel Online described the removal as part of a documentation as a targeted intrigue. As Spiegel Online reported in a preliminary version for issue 34/2010, the Chancellery was also involved in the removal of Peter Sawicki through the then head of the health policy department, Susanne Wald.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ IQWiG boss Sawicki: Executive board dismisses director of the institute. In: Spiegel Online . January 22, 2010, accessed June 30, 2015 .
  2. ^ Institute for Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology: Lecturers
  3. ↑ Werner Bartens: Withheld data - "Deception through concealment". In: sueddeutsche.de . October 14, 2010, accessed June 30, 2015 .
  4. ↑ IQWiG press release of November 24, 2009. ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iqwig.de
  5. ↑ a b c Veronika Hackenbroch, Katrin Elger: IQWiG boss Sawicki: The highest drug examiner has to go. In: Spiegel Online . January 21, 2010, accessed June 30, 2015 .
  6. ^ Hannes Vogel: Member of the Bundestag, a sought-after business partner of pharmaceutical companies. spiegel.de, July 20, 2013, accessed on July 26, 2013 .
  7. ↑ Government coalition wants to replace the uncomfortable pharmaceutical inspector. In: Der Spiegel (preliminary version from issue 49/2009). November 28, 2009, accessed June 30, 2015 .
  8. ↑ IQWiG chief defied: Review of Sawicki cost more than 20,000 euros. In: Spiegel Online . March 14, 2010, accessed June 30, 2015 .
  9. ^ Andreas Mihm: Company car affair burdens drug examiners. In: FAZ.net . January 17, 2010, accessed June 30, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Philipp Neumann: The supreme drug tester is evidently about to be replaced. In: welt.de . January 19, 2010, accessed June 30, 2015 .
  11. ↑ IQWiG boss under fire: New allegations against drug tester Sawicki. In: Spiegel Online . January 18, 2010, accessed June 30, 2015 .
  12. ^ Markus Grill: affairs: Operation Hippocrates. In: Spiegel Online . March 15, 2010, accessed June 30, 2015 .
  13. ^ The Chancellery was involved in the removal of Sawicki. In: Der Spiegel (preliminary version from issue 34/2010). August 21, 2010, accessed June 30, 2015 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Sawicki, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor and medical scientist
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw , Poland