Medicines Pricing Policy and Strategies in Developing Countries: A Review

Abstract

Developing countries are still facing high out-of-pocket expenditure and low access to medicines despite the various efforts undertaken by international organizations to enhance the availability of essential medicines and regulation of pharmaceutical sectors. Purposively, a systematic review of pharmaceutical pricing policies in these countries was conducted. It revealed that developing countries are implementing pharmaceutical pricing policies in line with international recommendation and analogous to strategies in developed countries. Nevertheless, the effectiveness and impact of such policies are rarely monitored or surveyed. Despite success in some cases, there are several factors hindering the implementation of optimal pricing policies including poor availability of medicine in the public sector, lack of compliance by stakeholders, lack of enforcement, and poor governance of the pharmaceutical sector. - 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.