Researchers explore ways to ease the cost of medicines

Data shows that global expenditure on medicines is rising up to 6% per year driven by increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and new premium priced medicines for cancer, orphan diseases and other complex areas.

It is against this backdrop that Dr. Sylvia Opanga, a scholar at the University of Nairobi teamed up with other scholars to explore measures that would ease the cost of medicines across countries.

Their research outlined a number of measures that will be needed to attain and retain universal healthcare.

They found out that new models are being introduced to improve the managed entry of new medicines including managed entry agreements, fair pricing approaches and monitoring prescribing against agreed guidance.

The study also revealed that multiple measures have also successfully been introduced to improve the prescribing of established medicines. This includes encouraging greater prescribing of generics and biosimilars versus originators and patented medicines in a class to conserve resources without compromising care in addition to reducing inappropriate antibiotic utilization.

The research titled: Evidence-based public policy making for medicines across countries: findings and implications for the future was published in the journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research

See full article here: https://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/full/10.2217/cer-2020-0273