Abstract
BackgroundMedicine price information mechanisms provide an essential tool to countries that seek a better understanding of product availability, market prices and price compositions of individual medicines. To be effective and contribute to cost savings, these mechanisms need to consider prices in their particular contexts when comparing between countries. This article discusses in what ways medicine price information mechanisms can contribute to increased price transparency and how this may affect access to medicines for developing countries.MethodsWe used data collected during the course of a WHO project focusing on the development of a vaccine price and procurement information mechanism. The project collected information from six medicine price information mechanisms and interviewed data managers and technical experts on key aspects as well as observed market effects of these mechanisms.The reviewed mechanisms were broken down into categories including objective and target audience, as well as the sources, types and volumes of data included. Information provided by the mechanisms was reviewed according to data available on medicine prices, product characteristics, and procurement modalities.ResultsWe found indications of positive effects on access to medicines resulting from the utilization of the reviewed mechanisms. These include the uptake of higher quality medicines, more favorable results from contract negotiations, changes in national pricing policies, and the decrease of prices in certain segments for countries participating in or deriving data from the various mechanisms.ConclusionThe reviewed mechanisms avoid the methodological challenges observed for medicine price comparisons that only use national price databases. They work with high quality data and display prices in the appropriate context of procurement modalities as well as the peculiarities of purchasing countries. Medicine price information mechanisms respond to the need for increased medicine price transparency and have the potential to contribute to improved access to medicines in developing countries.Additional research is required to explore more specific aspects. These include the market effects of dedicated donor funds for certain medicines to explain the driving force of user demands, and the effects of increased price transparency on different groups of medicines in context of the maturity of their markets.
Highlights
Medicine price information mechanisms provide an essential tool to countries that seek a better understanding of product availability, market prices and price compositions of individual medicines
One of the work streams of the project included the review of six medicine price information mechanisms to explore existing tools and lessons learned through the operation of price information mechanisms: World Health Organization (WHO)’s Global Price Reporting Mechanism (GPRM) [21], WHO/Health Action International’s (HAI) medicine price database [22], Management Sciences for Health’s (MSH) International Drug Price Indicator Guide [23], WHO/ Western Pacific Regional Office’s (WPRO) Price Information Exchange (PIE) [24], the Global Fund’s Price and Quality Reporting (PQR) tool [25], as well as Médicins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) Untangling The Web (UTW) report [26]
With GPRM, the WHO/HAI database and PIE, WHO has been directly involved in the development and operation of three of these mechanisms
Summary
Medicine price information mechanisms provide an essential tool to countries that seek a better understanding of product availability, market prices and price compositions of individual medicines. This article discusses in what ways medicine price information mechanisms can contribute to increased price transparency and how this may affect access to medicines for developing countries. Medicine price information mechanisms are significant tools to achieve increased price transparency by providing information on product prices as well as the components that influence these prices, such as volume and product quality Information provided by such mechanisms allows developing countriesa to make more informed decisions about the most efficient and effective ways to procure medicines. In addition to providing comparative price information between market participants, which would be challenging to access in similar quality for individual countries without such tools, medicine price information mechanisms can help identify and improve inefficiencies in existing procurement systems when providing contextual information about the reported prices. This article takes a closer look at the pros and cons of increased medicine price transparency with regards to access to medicines in developing countries and assesses the role of medicine price information mechanisms in this context
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