Kranke Geschäfte (2019)

Armin Glaser is a committed Stasi officer who, even in 1988, still firmly believes in the socialist state. We see him send a supposed enemy of the state to prison because he had sung Wolf Biermann songs in public. As a Stasi officer, Armin enjoys certain privileges: a car, a large, new apartment, and better medical care. Armin’s daughter Kati is admitted to hospital with unclear symptoms. She is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and the disease is already causing serious paralysis. The officer discovers that, as part of a drug study run by Western pharmaceutical companies, she is being treated only with placebos. Kati shares a room with another patient, whose condition is considerably better thanks to new drugs that have not yet been approved. Armin wants to help his daughter and puts pressure on the clinic. In doing so, he comes into conflict with his superiors. It becomes clear that the drug studies were approved at the highest level because the state needs foreign currency, and because the people involved are also lining their own pockets. Armin is transferred to desk duty and eventually even ends up in prison. In parallel, the story is told from the perspective of a (fictional) small Western pharmaceutical company. Under pressure from competitors and the market, its board feels compelled to conduct trials of new, risky drugs without properly informing patients. Failures are kept secret. This had worked well up to then, in what was evidently a discreet collaboration with doctors and clinics in the GDR that had already been going on for decades. Much remains unresolved at the end: in 1989, the political transition opens up new treatment prospects for Kati at a specialist clinic in West Germany. Armin is released from prison and is vilified as a former Stasi officer. The drug being tested is effective, but still nowhere near ready for the market. The final images show new agreements for trials being made with a clinic in Bulgaria in 1992.