Generics & Biosimilars. Executive Search.

The commercial core of this market is the rebate contract under Section 130a(8) SGB V. Health insurers tender off-patent active ingredients in cycles and usually award the contract to the highest percentage rebate on the list price. Whoever wins secures, through the pharmacy substitution requirement, almost the entire market share of that insurer for the active ingredient. Whoever loses an established tender at a large insurer such as the AOK or the Techniker Krankenkasse sees an almost complete collapse in sales within hours.

This total-loss mechanism forces highly complex calculation models that weigh global manufacturing costs, local logistics, the threat of penalties for supply failure and the volume needed for plant utilisation against one another in fine detail. A miscalculation of a few cents decides between winning a contract and losing an entire volume.

The reference-price system is the second, equally relentless layer of price regulation. The GKV umbrella association groups comparable active ingredients and sets a maximum reimbursement amount. If the selling price is above it, the patient pays the difference at the pharmacy, which brings prescription numbers to a virtual standstill. Because reference prices are lowered in regular cycles, revenue per pack erodes continuously. Companies can only absorb this pressure through volume or through drastic cuts in the cost of goods sold.

The result is a massive narrowing of the market. For 17 supply-critical active ingredients a single company supplies almost all statutorily insured patients; for 104 further active ingredients more than half of the insured depend on a single manufacturer. This bottleneck is the direct commercial consequence of the price pressure described.

The legislator responds to the economic pressure with regulation that often intensifies it. The Medicines Supply Shortage Prevention and Care Improvement Act, ALBVVG for short, requires six months of mandatory stockholding for rebate-contracted medicines. For company leaders this means a massive tie-up of capital that is not reflected in the capped tender prices. The additionally intended multiple-award to manufacturers with European active-ingredient production largely comes to nothing in practice. In an antibiotics tender by the Techniker Krankenkasse, bidders with a European active-ingredient source were found for only two of eight lots, because European active-ingredient production has been structurally dismantled over two decades.

A second turning point is fundamentally changing the biosimilar market. Since 1 April 2026 pharmacies substitute prescribed biologics with lower-cost biosimilars under the conditions of Section 40c of the Pharmaceuticals Directive, unless the physician rules it out; an insurer rebate contract takes priority. The underlying decision of the Federal Joint Committee dates from 4 December 2025. This aut-idem substitution shifts the commercial decision from the physician level to the pharmacy and the health insurer, and directly affects the business plans of players such as Sandoz, Stada and Fresenius Kabi.

At the European level, the pharmaceutical reform agreed in December 2025 keeps the base data protection at 8 years but cuts the subsequent market protection from 2 to 1 year and makes further protection conditional on factors such as supplying all EU markets. In parallel, the EU is supporting the relocation of critical active-ingredient production back to Europe through the IPCEI Med4Cure project. The manufacturer EuroAPI is using it to bring macrolide antibiotics and corticosteroids back from Asia. The more expensive European active ingredients, however, earn no sufficient premium in the insurers’ price tenders.

Four functions decide whether a company translates the volume screw and the price dictate into profitable market share. As an executive search firm and headhunter for generics and biosimilars, ANDRIS Consulting fills these key positions, permanent and interim, in Germany and across the DACH region.

From the mechanics that more than seventy percent of generics revenue runs through statutory rebate contracts, it follows inevitably: this role holds the direct lever on profitability. It does not calculate the bids itself but owns the strategy: which tenders a company pursues, which it deliberately concedes and where the margin keeps the plant utilised. A wrong call decides the total loss of a market share or losses in the millions from a negative gross margin. What is needed is strategic decisiveness, paired with a deep understanding of SGB V and the multiple-award logic of the ALBVVG. Profiles from classic Rx pharma, used to value-based pricing and AMNOG dossiers, fall short here, because in tender management cost leadership decides success.

Because the supply chain is the biggest vulnerability in the system, this director acts as the company’s life insurance. The discrepancy between globally fragmented active-ingredient production, much of it in Asia, and the mandatory six-month stockholding under the ALBVVG for rebate-contract medicines makes the supply chain the central risk management. The holder steers global flows of goods from Asian or European reshoring partners through to the German distribution centres, optimises freight costs between sea freight and expensive air freight, and is the first escalation point for looming stock-outs of supply-critical medicines. Logisticians from automotive or consumer goods fail on the missing regulatory flexibility, because strict marketing-authorisation law prohibits any unauthorised change of the active-ingredient supplier.

A generics house without a fresh, profitable pipeline dies from the price erosion of its existing portfolio. This role is the architect of future revenue. It screens patent databases to anticipate loss-of-exclusivity events, negotiates in-licensing and co-development partnerships and anticipates the shifts in data protection brought by the EU pharmaceutical reform. The successful biosimilar wave for ustekinumab and denosumab, as demonstrated by STADA, Formycon, Sandoz and Fresenius Kabi, is the result of negotiations conducted here years earlier. What is decisive is reliably achieving the day-one launch, because prices collapse by up to seventy percent in the first quarter after patent expiry. Equally valuable is the opposite decision: to deliberately skip a day-one launch when the high volume carries no attractive risk-reward profile and the margin lies elsewhere, in a niche or a specialty generic. Leaders from pure research companies who seek the perfect, differentiated product fail on the required speed and the merciless cost optimisation.

With the biosimilar wave the business has become markedly more sales-driven again. The National Sales Director Biosimilars does not visit physicians personally; they build and lead the sales organisation. The therapeutic equivalence of biosimilars is now widely accepted among physicians, so it is less about scientific persuasion than about closing strength across the team and building durable relationships with hospitals, hospital pharmacies and purchasing groups. Leaders who try to run the biosimilar business like the pure price and rebate-contract business of generics fall short, as do pure medical profiles without sales steering. ANDRIS Consulting fills National Sales Director Biosimilars and the associated hospital and key-account roles, permanent and interim, in Germany and across the DACH region.

The ideal candidates in tender management, pricing, supply chain and biosimilar sales are not visible in any candidate database, answer no job advert and do not respond to standardised LinkedIn approaches. They are content in their current position, or at least not actively dissatisfied. That is exactly the reality with most top profiles.

The value of ANDRIS Consulting lies in activating these passive candidates. We approach them personally, at eye level, and make the specific constellation of a mandate so transparent that a career conversation becomes possible in the first place. We do not draw a requirements profile, but a picture. We show what impact the person can have in this concrete situation, what scope the environment offers and whether this constellation is personally better for them than the current one. For that, we listen first.

Direct approach at eye level is the method. Activating passive top performers is the result. Our clients get a different candidate mix than through classic job advertising or active sourcing.

A classic case in pharma headhunting for generics and biosimilars is the confidential search. It is used when an incumbent, for example in tender management, pricing or biosimilar sales leadership, has to be replaced and the search must not become public. In this case ANDRIS Consulting ensures the highest confidentiality, so the company can manage a smooth transition without creating unrest in its own team or vis-à-vis health insurers and authorities.

ANDRIS Consulting’s mandates cover the generics and biosimilar market from different angles: classic generics manufacturers whose business runs via tenders and reference prices, biosimilar players with their own sales force, and companies with an asset-light model that grow through acquired licences.

ANDRIS Consulting fills Head of Tender Management, Senior Tender Manager and Pricing Manager who calculate the net-net price, analyse competitors’ bidding behaviour and negotiate directly with the health insurers. Profiles that master the total-loss mechanism of rebate contracts and translate the implementation of biosimilar substitution into new pricing corridors.

ANDRIS Consulting fills Director Supply Chain, Logistics Lead and Supply Chain Manager for the control of global flows of goods, the ALBVVG stockholding obligation and freight-cost management. Profiles that actively manage the dependence on Asian active-ingredient sources and shift to European reshoring partners.

ANDRIS Consulting fills Country Manager and General Manager for the DACH business as well as Head of Business Development and Portfolio Management for anticipating patent expiries, in-licensing and securing the day-one launch for biosimilars and specialty generics.

ANDRIS Consulting fills National Sales Director Biosimilars, Hospital Account Manager and Hospital Key Account Manager as well as Key Account Manager for health insurers. In the biosimilar market, closing strength and a direct line to hospitals, purchasing groups and payers count for more than medical education, especially since the automatic substitution at the pharmacy.

ANDRIS Consulting fills Key Account Manager and Trade Manager for the pharmaceutical wholesale and the mail-order channel. Wholesale, such as Phoenix, Alliance Healthcare and Sanacorp, is at once a sales partner and a customer in the generics business and a central pivot for listing and availability. In parallel, the e-prescription is shifting volume into the mail-order channel, mail-order pharmacies such as DocMorris and Shop Apotheke are gaining weight, and many manufacturers see real growth potential here. What is needed are profiles that steer terms, assortment and availability across these channels.