External Reference Pricing Policy: A Possible Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Policy in Georgia

rmaceutical expenditure is a heavy financial burden and one of the factors of the impoverishment of the Georgian population. One of the leading factors contributing to the particularly high medicine expenditure in Georgia is a significant gap in pharmaceutical policy and regulations, which has created an environment conducive to both irrational use of medicines and uncontrolled growth of drug prices in the country

This document focuses on external reference pricing – one of the tools used to regulate pharmaceutical prices which makes medicines more accessible to the citizens brings their prices closer to those in neighboring countries and saves both a portion of the country’s budget spent on medicines and out-of-pocket pharmaceutical expenditure borne by the population.

The purpose of this document is to review the implications of external reference pricing (ERP) – one of the most widely used mechanisms for regulating medicine prices – for improving access to medicines and to summarize factors relevant for the ERP introduction so as to make policymakers avoid potential risks and dangers of the ERP introduction (if the latter is decided) by taking into account the existing international experience.

The document was developed by a group of authors – Lela Sulaberidze, Vakhtang Natsvlishvili, Nino Kotrikadze, Tsira Gvasalia, Konstantine Chachibaia. The evidence synthesis was prepared under the Evidence-based Policy and Practice Support Project implemented by Curatio International Foundation in partnership with the Knowledge to Policy Center (K2P) at the American University of Beirut.

See the document. 

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