Promoting affordable and fair pricing and effective financing
Equitable access to essential, high-quality and affordable essential medicines and other medical technologies depends on affordable and fair pricing and effective financing schemes. Promoting affordable and fair prices and cost-effective interventions
is central to the achievement of universal health coverage.
An ‘affordable and fair’ price is one that can reasonably be funded by patients and health budgets and simultaneously sustains research and development, production and distribution within a country.
Medicines prices are not static
The ‘price’ of a medicine or a technology is generally a function of markets, and changes over time. Prices can be measured and evaluated as the price paid to the manufacturer, the price paid by the consumer or patient, or prices from suppliers.
Typically, a new medicine is launched under patent and may have a high price until the patent expires and competition and/or generic products emerge. Prices of generic versions that are registered following patent expiry usually decrease rapidly,
often by more than 90% compared to originator brand.
Many countries are unable to benefit from lower priced generics due to delays with market entry or lack of effective competition. However, public pressure and legal challenges decreased the price of several antiretroviral medicines in countries with high
burdens of human immunodeficiency virus before patent expiry.
Flexibilities under the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement allow countries to gain access to medicines that in other countries may still be under patent, in the interest of public health.
