EU needs tiered drug pricing to improve patient access: Bayer exec

EU prices are already set on a national level. The EU single market allows for the movement of goods and services.

"The trick today is if you do this just like that, then all of the product that you would ship to Lithuania at a discounted price would go immediately back to France because there's free circulation of goods. So then there would need to be a mechanism to actually make that manageable," he said.

An EU source expressed doubts about whether tiered pricing schemes like the one proposed by Oelrich could solve the access problems the Commission's pharmaceutical legislation seeks to address.

There would be no certainty companies would go to smaller or poorer EU countries as they do not have a profit incentive to prioritize them, the EU source said.

Even if they do go (to poorer countries), they are unlikely to do so in a timely manner, since they will prioritize more lucrative sales in the larger and wealthier member states, the EU source added.

Bayer's new CEO, former Roche pharmaceutical head Bill Anderson, starts at the company next month.

The company is working to expand its pharmaceuticals business in the United States, and has stepped up spending on research and development there despite a new U.S. law that will allow the government to negotiate prices on some drugs for patients in its Medicare health program.

"If I compare the conditions between the U.S. and Europe in terms of drug pricing, they're still more favorable in the U.S. than they are in Europe," Oelrich said.