Skip to main content
Download PDF
Download ePub

Volume 8 Supplement 1

Abstracts from the 3rd International PPRI Conference 2015: Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Policies: Challenges Beyond the Financial Crisis

  • Poster presentation
  • Open access
  • Published:

Availability and prices of essential medicines for chronic diseases in older people in the Asia Pacific Region

Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice volume 8, Article number: P3 (2015) Cite this article

Background

Little is known about the prices and availability of medicines for chronic diseases used by older people in the Asia Pacific Region. The objective of this study was to assess the availability and prices of essential medicines for chronic diseases in 11 countries, namely China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. The study was carried out at an international level.

Methods

A secondary analysis of medicine prices and availability data from the Health Action International's database on medicine prices, availability and affordability was undertaken in March - May 2015. Data on the availability and price of 15 medicines used for chronic diseases prevalent in the older population were obtained from facility-based surveys conducted in 11 countries between 2001 and 2013. Prices were converted into the base year of 2014. Patient prices were adjusted for inflation and purchasing power parity and procurement prices for inflation and official exchange rates. Data were analysed for lowest priced generic (LPG) and innovator brand (IB) products in both the public and private sectors.

Results

The availability of medicines for chronic diseases was suboptimal across countries in the Region. The median availability of any medicine (IB or LPG) in the public sector was 35.5% compared with 56.7% in the private sector. Thailand and Indonesia had the highest levels of availability in the public sector (80% and 60.1% respectively) while in the private sector it was India and Fiji (90% and 83.4% respectively).

Countries in the Region paid 1.4 times the international reference price (IRP) to procure LPGs and 9.1 times the price for IBs. India and Fiji achieved low procurement prices (0.4 and 0.6 times IRP for LPGs) while the Philippines had the highest procurement prices for both IBs and LPGs. In general, patient prices were lower in the public sector than in the private sector (21.5 times IRP vs. 32.2 times for IBs and 6.6 times vs. 11.5 times for LPGs). In the public sector, Malaysia and India provided medicines free of charge while the Philippines charged the highest price.

Conclusions

The availability and prices of medicines for chronic conditions were highly variable across the Asia Pacific Region. Medicines were more available in the private sector, but at an excessive price. Implementation of policies to improve the availability and reduce the prices of essential medicines for chronic diseases is needed.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre, School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, Sansom Institute, University of South Australia GPO, Adelaide, 5001, Australia

    Tuan A Nguyen & Agnes Vitry

  2. Center for Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health, Shandong University, Shandong, 250100, China

    Sun Qiang & Haipeng Wang

  3. Department of Pharmacy Practice, JSS College of Pharmacy, JSS University, Karnataka, 570015, India

    Krishna Undela

Authors
  1. Tuan A Nguyen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sun Qiang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Haipeng Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Krishna Undela
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Agnes Vitry
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Agnes Vitry.

Rights and permissions

Open Access  This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Nguyen, T.A., Qiang, S., Wang, H. et al. Availability and prices of essential medicines for chronic diseases in older people in the Asia Pacific Region. J of Pharm Policy and Pract 8 (Suppl 1), P3 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/2052-3211-8-S1-P3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/2052-3211-8-S1-P3

Keywords

Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice

ISSN: 2052-3211

Contact us