International drug price comparisons: quality assessment

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Pharmaceutical Policy
• Global Health

Background:

• International drug price comparison studies are crucial for understanding global pharmaceutical markets.
• Assessing the methodological quality of these studies is essential for reliable findings.
• Drug affordability, adjusted for income, provides a more accurate picture than raw prices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantitatively summarize findings from international drug price comparison studies.
• To assess the methodological quality of existing drug price comparison research.
• To analyze drug prices and affordability across different countries.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search of Medline, Embase, IPA, and Scopus up to May 2009.
• Extraction of international drug price and affordability data from 21 selected studies.
• Assessment of study quality using six predefined criteria.

Main Results:

• Only 1 out of 21 studies met all quality criteria, indicating poor overall study quality.
• Significant variation in methodologies (indices, parameters, price types) led to inconsistent results.
• Higher income countries generally had higher nominal drug prices but greater affordability after income adjustment.

Conclusions:

• Substantial differences exist in drug prices and affordability globally.
• Low-income countries experience lower drug affordability, potentially hindering access and negatively impacting health.
• There is a critical need to improve the quality and standardization of international drug price comparison studies.