How profitable was the PCR test for Covid-19 for laboratories? A journalistic investigation conducted by the German television stations WDR, NDR and the publication Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) shows that the price of 59 euros per test was the beginning of a waste that continues to this day and has cost the German state billions of euros.

For this purpose, more than 1,000 pages of internal files of the Ministry of Health and Economy, as well as other confidential documents, were evaluated, and numerous discussions were held with people inside the system. For the first time, the dubious price calculations, with the help of which the doctor’s lobby planted high prices, became public.

How profitable PCR testing has been for laboratories can be seen, among other things, from the detailed business figures published by some well-known companies. According to Tagesschau.de, some profits literally exploded.

Sonic Healthcare, an international laboratory group, said: “The significant increase in sales is the result of higher laboratory sales, particularly related to the PCR diagnostics of Covid-19 related to the pandemic.” The figures can be found in the annual report of the concern.

Huge price difference

TIB Molbiol was the first company in Germany to produce Corona tests and sell them to laboratories. Its founder, Olfert Landt, has been collaborating for years with the virology laboratory of Christian Drosten, a professor at the Charité Medical School in Berlin and a member of the Federal Chancellor’s Expert Group. Landta has been offering certified tests since February 2020.

As for the prices at which he sold his PCR tests to laboratories, Landt declined to elaborate. If you take all the necessary ingredients together, the PCR reagents, the extraction control and the polymerase, “then you get four euros,” says Landt. If you also include the cleaning of the sample, which some laboratories have done, you reach a maximum of nine euros per test.

“In addition to TIB Molbiol, other companies also offer the same low-cost test systems. For example, the companies Genekam and Biozol offered their PCR tests at the same prices as Landt then, as they are today,” Tagesschau journalists write.

Lack of transparency

Since May 2020, health insurance companies have also made efforts to reduce prices. Without public transparency and without the participation of the Ministry of Health, doctors and representatives of health insurance agreed in the so-called evaluation commission.

The commission is based on the idea of ​​self-governance in the health care system: politicians have only to set a rough framework, and “actors” have to reach an agreement on all specific issues. The committee meets in secret.

But internal documents show that health insurance companies have already demanded a reduction in the cost of the tests to €23, while the Doctors Association continued to charge €59.

During negotiations in May 2020, health insurance companies also questioned the surprisingly high additional costs doctors charged for the test, including staff costs of €6 per test and other “upfront costs” of almost €20 per test.

However, health insurance companies only have to pay for tests in doctors’ offices and hospitals. On the other hand, if you were a contact of an infected person or had a red alert on the Corona app, the federal government had to pay the costs of the PCR for you.

But while insurance companies paid just €39.40 per test from July 2020, the Ministry of Health paid laboratory doctors nine months more for each PCR test at €50.50. The ministry’s documents do not provide a breakdown of how the federal government is justifying the payment. The ministry did not answer questions from German journalists about how such a high price arose.

The indifference of billions

In 2022, labs continued to get serious money for Corona tests. Until July, medical insurance companies paid 35 euros for the test, the ministry even 43.56 euros. At that time, laboratories could buy a certified test from Biozol for three euros, from Euroimmun for six euros and from altona Diagnostics for seven euros.

Even today, after several rounds of price cuts, laboratories collect €27.30 from insurance companies and €32.39 from the federal government for each PCR test.

Michael Müller, head of the lobbying association of ALM laboratories, called the prices justified. In the health care committee of the German Bundestag, he claimed that the prices of PCR tests in Germany are at the “lowest level” compared to other European countries.

Instead, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said in an interview with WDR, NDR and SZ that tests in Germany are very expensive, “they were more expensive than abroad.”

Confronted with research conducted by German journalists, he admits: “The cost of the tests seemed too high to me. Then I reduced them by more than half. However, providers are satisfied with money. Therefore, the costs cannot be higher than what is currently being paid.”

Today, PCR tests in Germany cost about six billion euros. But, as reported, “politicians are not interested” in obtaining cheap PCR tests.

It is possible that this lack of interest in public money is the same as in the case of the controversial business with anti-corona protective masks of the time of the former health minister Jens Spahn, which I reported in detail here.

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