Pharmaceutical transparency

Definition

Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal trans­parency broadly refers to the pub­lic avail­abil­ity and pub­lic report­ing of infor­ma­tion gen­er­ally relat­ing to the mar­kets for med­i­cines, vac­cines and other health prod­ucts across the whole value chain. This includes increas­ing trans­parency on the actual costs of clin­i­cal tri­als, which is often kept secret and invoked by prod­uct devel­op­ers and other indus­try actors to make gen­er­ally unproven claims about research and devel­op­ment costs. Prod­uct devel­op­ers and other indus­try actors often then cite those unproven claims about research and devel­op­ment costs to jus­tify high prices of health tech­nolo­gies. Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal trans­parency also includes the need to increase pub­licly avail­able infor­ma­tion about the prices paid by pri­vate enti­ties and pub­lic pro­cure­ment agen­cies to acquire health tech­nolo­gies. Lack of patent sta­tus trans­parency can pre­vent or delay sev­eral types of pol­icy inter­ven­tions to facil­i­tate equi­table access to health tech­nolo­gies, such as com­pul­sory licens­ing. Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal trans­parency there­fore fur­ther includes the need for increas­ing pub­licly avail­able and reported infor­ma­tion about patent sta­tus.

States are increas­ingly rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tance of improv­ing trans­parency in the mar­ket for med­i­cines, vac­cines, and other types of health prod­ucts. This increas­ing recog­ni­tion led to the 2019 WHA Res­o­lu­tion on improv­ing the trans­parency of mar­kets for med­i­cines, vac­cines, and other health prod­ucts, avail­able in the Lan­guage Com­pendium. Fur­ther com­mit­ments to increase trans­parency in the mar­ket for vac­cines, med­i­cines, and other tech­nolo­gies should include man­dates to dis­close per patient costs of clin­i­cal tri­als, regard­less of out­comes.

Precedents

2022 HRC Res­o­lu­tion on access to medicines, vaccines and other health products

2022 HRC Res­o­lu­tion on ensuring equitable, affordable, timely and universal access for all countries to vaccines in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic

2021 HRC Res­o­lu­tion on ensuring equitable, affordable, timely and universal access for all countries to vaccines in response to COVID-19

2019 WHA Resolution on improving the transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines, and other health products

2019 HRC Resolution on access to medicines and vaccines