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Price Information Exchange for Selected Medicines in the Western Pacific Region

www.piemeds.com

Dardane Arifaj-Blumi ICIUM 2011

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Outline

• Background• Methodology• Challenges• Presentation• Conclusion

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Background

• Prices of medicines procured in the public sector vary greatly between countries and are not often publicly available.

• Prices for AIDS, Malaria and TB medicines are more readily accessible.

• Very few sources of information on prices of medicines for chronic diseases and pediatric medicines.

• Methodologies for collecting information on prices are often costly and complicated, yet difficult to use for cross-country comparisons.

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Western Pacific Regional Context

• Countries as big as China and as small as Niue

• Pacific Island countries - most medicines procured by public sector (central procurement)

• Mainland countries - highly decentralized

• Different systems: free of charge, paid out-of-pocket, insurance/reimbursement, revolving drug funds

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Background (2)

• Countries in the Western Pacific region have expressed the need for establishing a transparent mechanism for information exchange which will help them to assess procurement efficiency and provide leverage when negotiating prices with suppliers.

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Methodology• Member countries of the WHO Western Pacific region

were invited to participate.

• Structured questionnaires on medicines prices of the most recent procurement cycle in public sector:– product name– pack size – price per pack and unit – manufacturer– supplier – quantity procured

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Methodology (2)

• Semi-structured questionnaires were used for information on countries’ procurement system- centralized/decentralized- tendering cycles and processes- quality control- financing/pricing policies - taxes

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Response

• Round 1:- May - October 2009- 18 countries- 31 medicines

• Round 2:- June - November 2010- 14 countries- 40 medicines

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Challenge – data quality

• Incomplete information• Manual recording (illegible entries) in the first

round• Unit price not per smallest unit (syrups,

injections, inhalers)

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Challenge – data quality (2)

• Alternative dosage forms recorded• Confusion between manufacturer and supplier• Information on volume procured often missing• Currency (i.e. one country 4 different

currencies)

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Presentation of data• WPRO ensuring data quality through standardization

and extensive data cleaning.

• Conceptual design of the web-presentation.

• Web-development and data encoding in collaboration with the University of the Philippines, National Telehealth Center.

• In 2010 the platform for price information exchange www.piemeds.com (also in .net and .org) was launched.

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www.piemeds.com landing page

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Conclusion• Received very positive feed-back from countries.

• In a snap-shot, countries were able to compare their prices with other countries in the Region or sub-region and with the international reference prices.

• Countries used the information to assess their procurement efficiency and some to immediately re-negotiate their prices with suppliers.

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Conclusion (2)• piemeds.com promotes transparency by making

publicly available procurement prices for countries in the Western Pacific region.

• Comparative bar diagrams include more information than other sources of prices yet the presentation is clear and easier to follow.

• Other regions, economic blocks and organizations are showing interests in adapting the approach and some are already applying this innovative way of displaying prices.

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Conclusion (cost)

• piemeds.com is sponsored by WHO Western Pacific Region.

• It was established and is maintained with minimal costs: voluntary participation, no costs for training and data collection, simple to follow instructions, using existing expertise in countries and in WHO.

• piemeds.com is a powerful cost-efficient and simple to use tool that serves countries.

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Thank you

Questions welcomed