Introduction

The International Drug Price Indicator Guide contains a spectrum of prices from pharmaceutical suppliers, international development organizations, and government agencies. The Guide aims to make price information more widely available in order to improve procurement of medicines of assured quality for the lowest possible price. Comparative price information is important for getting the best price, and this is an essential reference for anyone involved in the procurement of pharmaceuticals.

Management Sciences for Health (MSH) has published theInternational Drug Price Indicator Guide since 1986 and updates it annually. It has been published with WHO since 2000.

Data from the 1996 edition to the present edition are available online. Please note that the World Health Organization (WHO) revises its Model List of Essential Medicines (EML), on which our therapeutic categories are based, every two years. We are presently using the 2015 classification. If you have any questions about the data online, earlier editions, or anything related to the Guide, please email us: [email protected].

Use this Guide to:

• Determine the probable cost of pharmaceutical products.
• Compare current prices paid to prices available on the international market.
• Plan budgets and programs.
• Assess the potential financial impact of changes to your current medicines list.
• Support rational medicines use education.

What this Guide cannot tell you:

• Exact information on prices or any other descriptive piece of information. No guarantees are implied in the list as to price changes, quality of products, or specific sales conditions.
• Precise information on storage conditions, shelf life ranges, and dosage, as this may vary with product, manufacturer, and country conditions.
• How to order the products; to place orders, the vendor must be contacted directly.
• Buyer prices should not be used as reference prices. See the Price Sources page for details.