EU: OECD Survey – Confidentiality Agreements and

in short

A recently published OECD survey involving 43 member countries found that less than half require publication of list drug prices, while the remainder are hampered by legal and/or contractual restrictions that prevent the publication of drug price information.

More specifically, the survey revealed the following results: (one) Nine of 43 countries reported the existence of domestic legal provisions that prohibit or otherwise severely limit the public disclosure of net drug price information; (two) Six of 43 countries reported transparency barriers due to legal restrictions that prevent medicine price sharing; (three) Thirty-two of 43 countries reported the existence of contractual clauses limiting the sharing of drug price information; (Four) All 43 countries surveyed expressed a strong interest in obtaining information on prices paid for medicines, both to guide price negotiations and to regulate external reference pricing and joint procurement initiatives; (five) Only 20 out of 43 countries have mandatory price disclosure.

While the international community clearly has a strong interest in transparency, the results of the above survey reflect significant obstacles to achieving this goal.