Talk:External reference pricing

Map of countries implementing ERP?
Would be nice to have a map of all countries implementing ERP in their drug cost-containement policies. --Signimu (talk) 00:29, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅ --Signimu (talk) 16:57, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

@Signimu
 * Hi, I'm now translating this article into Traditional Chinese, I'm just wondering if I can do anything to the 2 templates &  so that the captions and descriptions in English can be replaced by Chinese. Thanks.ThomasYehYeh (talk) 00:24, 16 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks, but I'm not sure I understand your respondence. Please treat me as a novice, I just started the translation in September of 2019, there's a lot for me to learn. Did your response is a YES? my experience with it in sandbox of traditional Chinese as following, and it seems to work:

Thank you.ThomasYehYeh (talk) 03:19, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

More resources on BRICS
A few more resources:, but it would be nice to dig further to find documentation on BRICS in particular. For instance, Russia implemented ERP as their main drug price criterion since Jan 2019 (under the name of "international benchmarking analysis" here: ), that's quite new and uncovered in the reviews I've found. --Signimu (talk) 16:59, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Make a new "medicines prices" article and merge some of the content here
The content in this article should maybe be moved to Medication costs that is broader in its scope, using the references provided below. Some of the material that could be moved over includes for example the prices supply chain taxonomies, that are not specific to the external reference pricing measure. --Signimu (talk) 19:02, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Here are interesting reports on a snapshot of the price and availability of medines for non-communicable diseases, this is surely interesting but I'm not sure this belongs here, maybe in another (connex) article? --Signimu (talk) 22:41, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * This source is excellent for all infos on pharmaceutical industries commercial and marketing strategies and evolution over time (look for "evergreening" for example), this source should be further exploited for this or other articles:. --Signimu (talk) 21:17, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The previous ref should be combined with this one, both can be used to kickstart a new article dedicated to pharmaceutical prices and the various cost containment policies that exist, including ERP but not only. Also, essential medicines (and their cost) is a central concept that is nicely covered by the Lancet commissioned paper.
 * Another interesting bit of info: "A costing model was developed on the basis of disease prevalence, current or projected consumption of medicines, and international reference prices. Using two consumption scenarios, the Commission estimated that between US$77·4 and $151·9 billion (or $13 to $25 per capita) is required to fi nance a basic package of 201 essential medicines (378 dosage forms) in all LMICs. Yet in 2010, the majority of low-income countries (LICs) and 13 out of 47 middle-income countries, spent less than $13 per capita on pharmaceuticals. Thus, the Commission confirmed that many people worldwide do not have access to even a limited basket of essential medicines."
 * Another great document about how to select medicine price data sources.
 * And this one about methodological issues of international prices comparisons.
 * Monograph of guidelines for price studies from specialists, reviews the state-of-the-art of the methods but also studies in various regions of the world, it's a gold mine for anyone interested in medicines prices. In particular, Chapter 3 talks about high-priced medicines, but the whole monograph really is useful. --Signimu (talk) 21:38, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * These sources are useful to explain the background of why medicine prices are important (to improve transparency and ultimately accessibility).Notable sources agree that essential medicines prices are a "crucial" or "key" health issue.   --Signimu (talk) 21:40, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * About pharmaceutical industry bad practices: "delegates of the pharmaceutical industry to the UN Millennium Project Task Force refused to sign the assessment report and opted for a statement of dissent.", "The Commission believes that moving away from an exclusively profit-oriented approach, towards a more patient-centred and public-centred, socially-responsive, open, and collaborative enterprise, would improve global health and the reputation of the pharmaceutical industry. As a result of the special nature of its products, the pharmaceutical industry has a unique role in society. It should now live up to this special responsibility, and be seen to do so." "The tactics of firms when threatened by generics have been scrutinized by the public, especially the ethically questionable practices, such as "evergreening" (milking a patent life cycle by extending it through dubious "innovations"), cornering the supply of the active ingredient, bribing the generic company not to supply generics, and suing generic makers over dubious patents. Much of the pharmaceutical industry was investigated by the European Commission over such practices, and class action law suits have been filed."

WHO/HAI doesn't belong here
I think we've got "external reference pricing" and "external reference prices" confused. The former is the topic of the article and is a method of controlling drug prices in a country by comparing with an external reference during negotiations. The latter are individual prices. So perhaps we need an external reference price article. The WHO/HAI methodology for conducting global price affordability studies makes use of external reference prices, but is AFAIKS nothing to do with external reference pricing. This methodology (or the idea of global price affordability studies) probably deserves its own article. -- Colin°Talk 18:36, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Further International reference price (aka external reference price) should not redirect here. On further reading, I think editors here have got a drug-price-control policy (external reference pricing) confused with a type of price (an external or international reference price). For the purpose of global price comparison studies such as described by WHO/HAI, we are concerned with prices, not pricing. The lead text compounds this confusion with "It is widely used for international comparisons of drug prices" -- the "it" here is really a "they": external reference prices. The singular noun "external reference pricing" is a drug price control policy. While the WHO/HAI studies do inform governments when adopting their external reference pricing policies, they are fundamentally an academic exercise. I think we should find another home for the detailed methodology. -- Colin°Talk 12:38, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Another point is we must be careful not to use sources that do not directly discuss "external reference pricing" when discussing how that policy is implemented. A source that discusses global price comparisons using the WHO/HAI method (along with recommendations, etc) is not actually a source on ERPing at all, and using it as such is synthesis and original research. -- Colin°Talk 15:24, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

I have created WHO/Health Action International Project on Medicine Prices and Availability to include content specific to that project. I plan to expand that article, as well as correct some mistakes on this one. We need to be clear that the "ing" word like "external reference pricing" ALWAYS refers to a policy on drug price control by referencing a basket of prices in other countries. The WHO/HAI project methodology for doing price surveys requires the ascertainment of an "international reference price" (no -ing) which often refers to the MHS price database. But those price surveys are not "pricing". -- Colin°Talk 18:53, 2 January 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm very happy that we have an article on WHO/Health Action International Project on Medicine Prices and Availability now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Can anybody help give me a blowup of this template ?
I've done the translation of this article into traditional Chinese already, but I couldn't find the codes for the above mentioned template for me to conduct the translation. Can anybody help? BTW, I don't know how hard it is to learn the technics for blowing up the template, but I'd appreciate if I can nave a tutorial if there's any, so that I can handle it by myself in the future. Thanks againThomasYehYeh (talk) 11:50, 14 February 2022 (UTC)