Table 1.

An overview of selected medicine price information mechanisms

Mechanism (host, year of inception)	Scope and focus	Information provided			Objective	Target audience
		Product	Pricing	Procurement
GPRM* (WHO, 2005)	38 items of HIV/AIDS products with different strengths (data on malaria and tuberculosis medicines will be reintroduced after completion of quality control). About 70,000 entries of transactional data.	Product group, strength, dosage form, manufacturer, country of manufacture, generic name, brand name, type of package, base unit of measure, quantity per package, number of packages, total number of smallest unit.	Unit price per smallest unit, total price paid.	Procuring country, date the order was placed, delivery date, customer name, Incoterms, shipment method, payment terms, consignee name.	To promote medicine price transparency by collecting, consolidating, analyzing and disseminating strategic information regarding affordability, accessibility, and availability of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria medicines and diagnostics, and to inform the decision making process of procurement agencies working at national and global levels.	National and global procurement agencies, donor agencies and NGOs.
PQR* (The Global Fund, 2004)	Circa 115 items of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis medicines and other health products (about 35,000 entries of transactional data).	Product, strength, dosage form, manufacturer, supplier, generic name, type of package, base unit of measure, quantity per package, number of packages.	Pack price, unit price, total price paid; limited information about mark-ups.	Procurement agents, procurement date, scheduled and actual delivery date, Incoterms; information about freight and insurance is provided as an estimate.	PQR is a grant monitoring tool for the Global Fund and its donors. It provides information on the efficiency of grant utilization, monitors consistency of costs with international reference ranges, and follows up on compliance with quality assurance policies.	Principal Recipients of Global Fund medicine support as well as the Global Fund secretariat and partners.
International Drug Price Indicator Guide (MSH, 1986)	About 1,100 medicines and other health products, focusing on products included in WHO’s Essential Medicines List (EML).	Generic name, strength, dosage form, route of administration, WHO status, defined daily dose, Anatomic Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification.	Buyer and supplier prices: pack price and unit price, with indication of highest, lowest and median listed price; approximated shipping costs for suppliers’ listed prices.	Incoterms.	To make price information more widely available in order to assist in planning budgets and help facilitate the procurement of pharmaceuticals and other health technologies of assured quality (as declared by data providers without constituting pre-qualification or quality approval from MSH or WHO) for developing countries for the lowest price possible, thereby contributing to the equitable access to health.	Ministries of Health, national medical procurement agencies and other institutions responsible for medicine procurement.
PIE (WHO/WPRO, 2009)	40 medicines (only 2009–2010 data available).	Generic name, brand name, dosage form and strength, package size, volume procured, manufacturer and supplier.	Pack price, unit price, indication about insurance and freight costs.	Procurement method and date; description of countries’ public medicines procurement system; regulations and quality assurance; taxes on medicines; medicines financing/expenditure and pricing policies.	To provide WPRO member states with a tool to help them assess their procurement efficiency over time and leverage their negotiation power with medicine suppliers, in order to obtain the best possible prices.	Ministries of Health, national and national medical procurement agencies.
UTW (MSF, 2001)	33 ARV medicines.	Therapeutic class, manufacturer, generic name, brand name, strength, dosage form, quality assurance (WHO prequalification and US FDA tentative approval status), WHO guidelines, updates on ARV developments, patent status of registered products.	Price information is provided by product formulation and daily dosage. Indication of market trends (i.e. evolution of lowest generic price and innovator price for middle and low income countries). Access eligibility criteria to certain prices for specific countries and organizations.	Indications of Incoterms provided by ARV manufacturers; world sales of originator product.	To provide a transparent platform of price information made available by medicine suppliers on the prices they offer to different categories of countries and organizations for the benefit of countries purchasing ARV medicines and receiving support from organizations involved in the provision of ARV drugs to beneficiaries in need.	Purchasers of ARV drugs who buy the products for use in developing countries, implementers of HIV programs, civil society and policy makers in public health and intellectual property.
WHO/HAI Database (HAI, 2003)	Information derived from about 100 surveys providing price data on a selection of 50 medicines (including 14 pre-selected global products, 16 pre-selected regional products, and 20 products selected by the individual research groups).	Manufacturer, generic name, brand name, strength, dosage form, unit of measure, national EML status.	Government procurement price and final patient price for the public, private, and other sectors in USD, local currency and as a ratio to an international reference price. Affordability of standard treatments. Medicine price components in the supply chain (manufacturer’s selling price, insurance and freight; landed price; wholesale selling price for the private sector, or the price indicated by central medical stores for the public sector; retail price for the private sector, or the dispensary price for the public sector; dispensed price).	N.a.	To improve the availability and affordability of essential medicines through the collection, analysis and publication of medicine price, availability, affordability and medicine price component data across health-care sectors and regions in a country. To improve price transparency. To provide information on pricing policy options and monitoring the impact of such policies.	For survey methodology and results: ministries of health, civil society, academia and others. For policy advice: national decision makers in health policy.

*GPRM and PQR are listed in sequence due to the similarity of the two information mechanisms. Otherwise the mechanisms included in this table are listed in alphabetical order.