Revision of medicine prices and sales price evolution in Moroccan pharmacies.

INTRODUCTION

Morocco adopted a new medicines pricing policy in 2013 that introduced price revisions following the implementation of Decree No. 2-13-852. This study aims to describe the evolution in medicine price decreases in Moroccan pharmacies following the price revisions published by the Ministry of Health.

METHODS

as part of a retrospective descriptive study, all the price revision lists over five years (2014-2019) were crossed with the databases of sales of medicines sold in pharmacies.

RESULTS

price decrease affected 1704 medicines, 54% of which were originator drugs. All therapeutic classes were involved, 22.7% were anti-infective, and 18.5% were for the cardiovascular system. Medicines with a public selling price between 5 and 10 US dollars (25.4%) were the most affected by the drop, even if it has concerned all price ranges. 22.8% of medicines decreased by less than or equal to 0.1 US dollar, and 28.7% recorded decreases of less than or equal to 1% of the public selling price. Five medicines (0.3%) have been reduced by over 70%, with 73.2% as a maximum drop percentage.

CONCLUSION

following the implementation of Decree no. 2-13-852, a series of medicine price revisions was adopted. All price ranges and therapeutic classes were affected by the price decrease, with several variations. However, complementary policies are still needed to improve access to medicines.