Advice to Belgian Chamber on transparency and fair medicine prices

The Belgian Chamber of Representatives is drafting bills to ensure fair prices for new medicines. At the request of the Belgian Chamber, Wemos, together with other organizations, provided advice on this topic. The bills concern increasing transparency in the pharmaceutical sector to determine what constitutes a fair price. The developments in Belgium can serve as an example for other countries, such as the Netherlands.

Objective and transparent criteria

The pharmaceutical industry is currently characterized by a lack of transparency. Companies do not have to be transparent about, for example, the prices that countries pay for their products or about the development and production costs and profit margins. This way, they can charge whatever they want for new drugs without governments being able to check whether the prices are fair. As a result, countries often pay exorbitant amounts, putting enormous pressure on national healthcare budgets.

Several political parties in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives now want to change this. They have submitted bills (see the texts of the bills at the bottom of this article) to introduce ‘objective and transparent criteria’ on the basis of which the price of medicines can be determined. According to the proposers of the bills, this should take into account ‘the costs, reasonable benefits and additional revenues according to the innovativeness of the medicine’.

Pricing model and cooperation

Together with the organizations Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation and Le GRAS, Wemos provided information and advice for the interpretation and practical implementation of these bills at the request of the Belgian Chamber. For example, we advocate the application of the so-called ‘cost-plus-plus’ model, which is based on the World Health Organization’s definition of fair medicine pricing. This model entails that the price is calculated based on the costs of research, development and production, with a fair profit margin for the pharmaceutical company and a contribution for innovative, needs-based medicines research.

We also recommend that governments cooperate more with other countries to achieve transparency and fair medicine prices. The current Beneluxa collaboration on access to medicines, consisting of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland and Austria, could be used better for this purpose.

Report with examples from other countries

Wemos, together with Health Action International, will soon publish a report with examples from several countries working on legislation and regulations for more transparency in the pharmaceutical sector, including Belgium. In doing so, we have collaborated with organizations and experts from around the world. The examples not only provide inspiration for governments, but above all show that many countries are eager for more transparency. This provides a strong basis for more international cooperation in this field.