From time to time we see an article or a headline on the theme that "so and so many new drugs have no added value". The latest example was an article published in the BMJ in July, looking at assessments done by the German agency IQWiG between 2011 and 2017. It says that more than half of the new drugs that have entered the German health system lacks proof of an added value.
 
It sounds outrageous, and when you start to think about it also rather mysterious, almost baffling. Who approved all these drugs that have no added value? Why were they developed? What kind of doctor prescribes them, and what kind of patient takes them? Or are they all sitting on a shelf somewhere, produced en masse by a soon to be bankrupt pharmaceutical company who made a bad investment decision?