Germany’s then health minister Nina Warken (CDU) visited pharmaceutical entrepreneur Clemens Fischer in Gräfelfing near Munich in March this year. Two months later, Fischer’s company’s cannabis medicine Exilby was approved in Germany. Shortly afterwards the rules for what the statutory health insurance covers in pain care were changed — in a way that benefits precisely that type of medicine. The opposition is now questioning what the government told parliament about its contacts with the manufacturer.
The visit was documented by the manufacturer itself
The March meeting is well documented: Fischer’s company Vertanical itself published a photo of its founder together with the CDU politician online. Two months later, the German approval for Exilby was in place — a finished cannabis medicine intended to relieve chronic pain.
In late August, Der Spiegel reported on documents suggesting there had been pressure from above in connection with the approval. Germany’s Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices, BfArM, rejected the claims.
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A last-minute amendment that benefits the manufacturer
Shortly after the approval, the black-red government wrote a surprise change into the act on stabilising the contributions of the statutory health insurance (GKV-Beitragsstabilisierungsgesetz): doctors are to prescribe finished cannabis medicines to pain patients as a first option. Individually prepared pharmacy formulations are only reimbursed if that does not help. The company judged to gain the most from the change is Vertanical.
Attention was also drawn to the fact that Vertanical founder Fischer, through his holding company, donated large sums to the current governing parties during the last Bundestag election campaign — the same parties that jointly wrote the passage into the law at short notice.
Fischer’s holding company has said the donations were “transparent and in accordance with applicable legal requirements” and that the aim was to support “the parties of the political centre”. A debate about party donations and hidden lobbying nevertheless followed, and calls for clarity came from the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector.
The government answered the MPs’ question with a no
The Green parliamentary group wanted to know, through a written question (Kleine Anfrage), whether the government had held talks and contacts with the manufacturer “during the approval procedure”. The government’s answer was short: no.
That raised the question of whether the government withheld Warken’s visit in Bavaria from parliament. A spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Health, now led by Warken’s party colleague Carsten Linnemann, denies this in response to Der Spiegel’s enquiry. The meeting did not take place “within the framework of the deliberations on the act on stabilising health insurance contributions”, and “therefore no mention was made in that context”. The Greens had, however, also asked specifically about the talks during the approval procedure itself.
A 2024 meeting arranged by a former CDU MP
At least one further contact raises questions. On 21 June 2024, experts from the health ministry and BfArM met representatives of Vertanical. The meeting had been arranged by former CDU Bundestag member Leo Dautzenberg, who now works as a lobbyist. In the Bundestag’s lobby register he was listed at the time as an interest representative for Vertanical, as a subcontractor of Eutop Europe GmbH. The consultancy belongs to the Eutop Group in Munich, which is known for engaging former politicians in its lobbying work.
An email seen by Der Spiegel shows that the meeting dealt explicitly with the approval application for Exilby’s active substance VER-01. The ministry’s spokesperson says such an exchange is “not unusual, particularly not for companies without experience of approvals”.
The application had not yet been submitted at that point. The health ministry would therefore not have been obliged to mention the meeting in its answer to the written question. Vertanical CEO Clemens Fischer did, however, send a follow-up email on 17 July thanking them for the “joint conversation”. Two days earlier the company had submitted the approval application, he wrote, expressing the conviction that they would for the first time be able to offer “millions of seriously ill pain patients” a “perspective of a new and effective therapy”.
Asked why the ministry did not mention the email in its answer, the spokesperson states that the BMG did not reply to the message.
Political interest in the approval process
Der Spiegel has previously reported on internal documents from the approval procedure showing that politicians followed the case with interest. Before Warken’s visit to Fischer, her officials asked BfArM in advance how far the application had progressed.
Something similar applied to a visit by Bavarian state premier Markus Söder (CSU) in December 2025. According to the reporting, the president of BfArM mentioned Söder’s visit to Vertanical to staff and said he had to answer questions about the status of the case. The Federal Ministry of Health also wanted to be kept informed.
Within the approval procedure, the expert level expressed considerable doubt about the drug’s benefit, yet it was approved. In August, Vertanical pointed to two studies in which Exilby showed “significant pain reduction”. A new enquiry about the lobbying contacts went unanswered by the company.
Unclear who drafted the amendment
It remains unclear how the priority for finished cannabis medicines, which Vertanical is now believed to benefit from, found its way into the law. The passage first appeared in an amendment to the bill in the Bundestag’s health committee. The BMG has stated that “regulatory content” is agreed in parliament and “transmitted to the BMG by the parliamentary groups”.
CSU MP Stephan Pilsinger instead pushed responsibility back to the ministry: the amendment was “prepared by the responsible specialist department of the Federal Ministry of Health and introduced into the process”.
Der Spiegel then asked the Union group’s health policy spokesperson, Simone Borchardt (CDU), for clarity. She too remained vague: assigning individual amendments to individual MPs is “expressly not possible”.
Green MP Paula Piechotta is puzzled by the evasiveness of the government and its parliamentary groups in the Bundestag: “Central questions remain unanswered,” she says. “It must be made transparent why a savings package is being used to force through more expensive medicines that no patient asked for and from which only one entrepreneur profits.”
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Cannabis: Verschwieg das Ministerium Lobbykontakte zu Medikamentenhersteller?
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