Breve 18: Procurement Policies for Pharmaceuticals: The International Experience

This Breve first highlights the importance of pharmaceutical procurement policies. It then focuses on the goals of National Drug Policies. Based on these goals, it looks into the reasons for intervening in pharmaceutical markets and different forms of intervention. The subsequent sections analyze in further detail the procurement of in-patent and off-patent medicines, since there are fundamental differences in the procurement of these two medicine types. Finally, the Breve concludes by summarizing the most important issues for policymakers to keep in mind when defining procurement policies.