Will Global Drug Price Transparency Improve Access for Patients?

December 9, 2022

With conversation building worldwide about growing drug prices, many have recommended efforts to increase global drug price transparency. This allows countries to make comparisons when negotiating prices with drug manufacturers. However, easy comparisons are not always possible, and the problem of high drug prices goes far beyond manufacturers.

According to Zeba M. Khan, RPh, PhD, “Patients continue to feel the burden as these health plans and pharmacy benefit managers (middlemen) have shifted more healthcare costs to patients through coinsurance and high deductibles. Unlike services for hospital stays and physician visits where health plans often share the costs with patients, this is usually not the case for medicines. Patient spending on branded medicines for commercially insured patients is often based on the undiscounted prices (list price) rather than the negotiated discounted prices (net price) health plans receive, leading to patient out-of-pocket costs for branded medicines increasing by 50% since 2014 according to PhRMA. To address the issue of patient access, we need to look at this holistically and reshape the insurance system to ensure these savings are passed on to patients.”

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