The financial burden of essential medications is a global healthcare problem. Differential pricing is one economic mechanism that may lower the cost of expensive drugs in less developed countries while preserving the financial incentive to pharmaceutical companies to undertake costly and risky research and development activities. The median price ratio (MPR) of medicines is used to gauge the price differentials in different countries. The MPR is the median price of medicines across the countries divided by an international reference price. The international reference price is a mechanism through which a country negotiates prices for medicines stating that it will not pay more than the prices paid by another country or a selected set of countries.
In this exploratory study, differential pricing in developing countries was characterized by analyzing the relationship between median price ratios and global national incomes using regression techniques. 32 middle income countries and 11 low income countries were included in the analysis using data from from Health Action International (HAI), World Health Organization (WHO), MSH, and the World Bank (WB). Although there was a visually positive relationship between median price ratios and global national income for low and middle income countries suggestive of differential pricing, this relationship was not statistically significant. Larger and more robust data sets will facilitate future studies on differential pricing in developing countries.