Until 2003, health insurers had to reimburse the full cost of all drugs covered by social health insurance, up to a legally determined reimbursement limit. As a result, generic drug prices were all close to the reimbursement limit, allowing pharmacies to make large profits. Attempts from the government to claw back part of the discounts offered to pharmacists were only marginally successful (Boonen et al., In parallel, health insurers started to issue tenders for contracts to supply several high-volume generic drugs.