High medicine prices and poor affordability

Abstract

Purpose of review: In developing countries, most people who need medicines have to pay for them out of their own pockets. This review focuses on publications to explore the affordability gap of medicines and ways to close it.

Recent findings: Cardiovascular medicines were unaffordable in low-income to middle-income countries, whereas dementia medicines were only affordable in regions of wealth. In urban Mozambique, local mark-ups are up to two-thirds of final price in private pharmacies, whereas some governments consistently paid higher prices above the international reference prices to procure a number of medicines. Generics competition from India made an originator brand manufacturer of a AIDS drug willing to supply the drug at a cheaper rate to poorer countries, whereas a Brazilian national program to produce nonprofit generics against protected patent of originator brand products to provide free AIDS drugs had cut the number of people dying by half and hospitalization by 80%, which saved about half a billion US dollars, making the program almost fund itself.

Summary: Although lowering the manufacturer's price has a greater effect on the cost, policies to eliminate duties and taxes on medicines and regulate mark-ups are practical strategies to avoid excessive add-on costs.