Publication

This brief outlines how a global structure of pharmaceutical prices may be determined to balance both the efficiency and the social equity concerns that arise in dealing with countries with widely disparate needs and incomes. The authors suggest a simple unified framework to determine optimal prices with relevance to countries at all levels of development. The authors support that drug prices should not be the same in all countries, that poorer countries should pay prices that are close to marginal costs and that drugs should be made available free of charge in the very poorest countries.