Overview of the market for novel medicines in the WHO European Region

ABSTRACT

The Oslo Medicines Initiative (OMI) is a platform through which stakeholders can collaborate to develop ways of achieving better, more affordable access to novel, high-priced medicines. To provide a foundation for this, a series of technical reports was commissioned to explore the issues, canvass ideas and present potential policy approaches for achieving better access and improved affordability. This introductory paper presents an overview of the issues and the complex dynamics involved. At their core is the concern that while the pharmaceutical industry continues to deliver important new therapies, launch prices are rising rapidly and this increasingly limits access for patients. Overall costs of these products are becoming unsustainable for both health-care systems and the patients they serve. Individual governments have limited bargaining power when procuring medicines, and competing policy goals may run counter to efforts to moderate costs. The OMI technical reports offer a broad landscape of ideas for building a forward-looking agenda to address the long-term interests of patients, payers, providers and the pharmaceutical industry.