OBJECTIVES: There is a growing emphasis in understanding reimbursement decisions for Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), which ultimately affect patient access to treatments. Despite a wide variety of treatment options there are still patients who do not achieve an adequate response. To analyse demand and supply side of RA treatment the effects of multiple factors on prescriptions decisions (as written by the doctors) and reimbursement (Reimb) such as logarithmized prescriptions (ln_Rx), relevant therapeutic classes (ATC), logarithmized prices (ln_Price) and sales (ln_Sales) and disease prevalence (Prev) will be determined. METHODS: According to the underlying dependent variables different model specification has been used. To explore the multiple variables affecting RA prescription a mixed model has been implemented whereas to analyse the shares of RA reimbursement levels a logistic regression has been chosen. RESULTS: The analyses include 6 years period (2003-2008) of prescription data for the EU5 covering all ATC classes prescribed for RA. We found significant effects on reimbursement for ln_Rx (0.1868,p<0.0001), ln_Price (-0.0189,p<0.0001), and country (France=1.1934, Germany=-0.2542, Italy=-0.1914 and Spain=-1.1066). On prescriptions the results are highly significant for ln_Sales (0.1793,p<0.0001), Reimb (0.1718,p<0.0001), ln_Price (-0.2576,p<0.0001), Prev (0.5012,p<0.0001), and 77% of all ATC classes. CONCLUSIONS: The results show that reimbursement seems to be negatively influence by supply (e.g. high retail prices in Germany) and demand (prescriptions) effects. These results are in line with national cost containment endeavours of payors. However, different factors such as promotion of generic drug usage in UK or high pharmaceutical consumption per person as in France combined with low prices seem to have stronger positive effects on reimbursement then in Spain, Germany, or Italy. As expected sales and further reimbursement opportunities are positively influencing the prescription of RA drugs whereas increasing prices are reducing RA related prescriptions. Interestingly, we see significant positive epidemiological demand factors such as an increasing RA prevalence.