In a nation with inflation at an 18year high, Ghana has seen an unprecedented increase in the cost of goods and services, causing the price of medicines to outpace the cost of other healthcare services.

According to the 2020 Ghana Pharma Market and Regulatory Report, Ghana’s pharmaceutical industry is the second largest in West Africa and is indispensable in achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and improving health outcomes (Pharmexcil, 2020). With more than 40% of Ghanaians paying out-of-pocket for their medicines, the private sector of the pharmaceutical industry remains a major stakeholder in making medicines more accessible, available and affordable. It is also a key player in ensuring financial risk protection in meeting the targets of Universal Health Coverage by 2030.

Following several successful reforms in the Ghanaian health sector, the COVID 19 pandemic cast a shadow on achieving UHC goals. Drug prices skyrocketed causing medicines to become unaffordable and inadvertently inaccessible. Anecdotally, prices of these medicinal products shot up to between 30% and 50% for both generic and innovator brands. These escalations in drug prices seem to make healthcare a prerogative of the affluent in society - but this should not be the case.

The Ghanaian pharma industry should consider implementing policy recommendations that cap the price of medicines in the private sector to some extent, given the rate of surging inflation, supply chain issues, and macroeconomic implications of the Russian-Ukraine conflict.

Generally, private health sector procurement prices are often on the higher side compared to the public sector. Unfortunately, after adjusting for mark-ups, many private retail pharma industries pass on the burden of the high cost incurred to the consumer. The big question is, is it affordable for the ordinary Ghanaian? How can we work around it so as not to pose as though pharma industries are leveraging on the inflation to increase profits?

As friends of the human race, the core value of every Ghanaian pharmacist is to ensure that healthcare is easily accessible and affordable. There is no doubt that pharma industries are aware of the impact of these high-priced medicines, especially the innovator brands on healthcare. Reports indicate that patients who cannot afford their medicines either abandon treatment, do not initiate at all, or try to ration their medications, which does not augur well for health outcomes. In the United States, nearly 3 in 10 adults are reported to stop taking their prescription medicines with 4.2% of patients resorting to cheaper but unapproved alternative therapies for which the consequences may be dire.

In the light of the public outcry, pharma industries must step up to the challenge and show a human face to their mantra. The government has supported and instituted many tax relief programs to assist pharmaceutical industries. Pharmacists must give back to reflect the mantra of being friends of the human race, by switching to a value-based pricing system that would improve the efficiency of healthcare spending

A value-based pricing system that advocates separate mark-up margins for innovator and generic brands with a lower mark-up for the innovator brand is recommended. A case in point would be charging a 2.5% mark up on an innovator brand like “Atacand” while charging a 3% or 3.5% on a generic brand like “Candersatan Teva”. Such a system would reflect a clinical benefit while protecting the end user, and ensuring medication affordability and accessibility.

.

In conclusion, pharmacists must adopt more robust systems and strategies like the value-based pricing method and other schemes used by countries like Germany and Australia to help lower drug prices and make medicines accessible and affordable for the masses. Perhaps, a value-based pricing method would offer some financial risk protection.

Pharmexcil, Ghana Pharma Market & Regulatory Report, 2020. Available:https://pharmexcil.com/uploads/countryreports/Ghana_Market_Regulatory_report2020.pdf [Accessed 30 October, 2022].