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1
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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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