Differential pricing strategy in improving access to medicine in developing countries

Abstract

Background Inadequate access to medicine is a key public health issue. It violates the basic human right, and impedes economics development and social progress. Differential pricing means to charge according to variant ability to pay for the same products. Since differential pricing has been successfully used into many business sectors, its adoption in pharmaceutical industry seems to be necessary and feasible to help improve access to medicine for developing countries. Objective This project is to review the effect of “differential pricing “in pharmaceutical industry and to discuss its current situation and future development. Methodology A literature review was conducted on this topic. Keywords of “(Tiered OR differential OR segment*) AND (price*) AND (developing countries) AND (pharmacy OR drug OR medicine OR vaccine)” were used in databases of Pubmed, Medline and Google scholar for relevant studies and reports on differential pricing in pharmaceutical or vaccine markets. Result A total of 16 papers were included into this systematic review. In theory, differential pricing is a “win-win” solution with the ability to reconcile both static and dynamic costs. In practice, differential pricing works to help improve access, however, lower tiered price for patent drugs is still more expensive than generic drugs in most cases. Conclusion Differential pricing strategy has the potential to improve access to medicine. However it is still in an infancy stage, there are still lots of spaces for further improvement. Except for pricing policies, other mutual supportive policies also need to obtain a better access to medicine in developing countries.