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 Activists say drug companies can charge high prices for some
medicines and governments spend too much, because they negotiate
without knowing how much each drug actually costs to make.
Drug companies argue that cost information is a commercial secret.
They say new drugs should be priced according to the benefits they
bring to patients, regardless of production and development costs,
to ensure companies have a commercial incentive to tackle disease.
An earlier draft of the text would have given the WHO explicit
powers to collect and analyze data on procurement prices and costs
from clinical trials. But that wording was omitted from a draft
published on Tuesday.
A WHO committee adopted the draft by consensus after a long
negotiation, just in time for it to be considered by the WHO's
annual assembly which was due to close later on Tuesday.
The agreed text of the resolution, which was initially proposed by
Italy, "urges member states in accordance with their national and
regional legal frameworks and contexts" to publicly share
information on net prices and support dissemination and enhanced
availability of data.
WHO member states would also pledge to support dissemination of
information about the costs from clinical trials, if it is already
publicly available or voluntarily provided, regardless of the
outcome of the trial.
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James Love, head of the transparency campaign group Knowledge
Ecology International called the resolution a "solid start" in
addressing the issue but said the text made "tortured dances around
R&D costs".
"This will be seen by industry as language making costs data
confidential information," he said on Twitter.
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers &
Associations industry lobby group was not immediately available for
comment.
The deal will also mandate the WHO to monitor the impact of
transparency on prices and to keep supporting governments with help
on pricing transparency policies and data.
"Overall, the resolution is, as expected, weaker overall than the
version from May 20 sponsors text, but represents an impressive
statement on price transparency, at time when non-disclosure
agreements have become increasingly common," Love said.
(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Peter Graff)
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