A joint price negotiation bloc for middle-income countries, modelled on Beneluxa
Small European countries have started negotiating cancer drug prices together. A bloc of large middle-income countries would have far more bargaining power.
Beneluxa, the Nordic Pharmaceutical Forum and the Valletta Declaration group pool HTA and negotiation among European countries with modest results but proof of feasibility. Middle-income countries (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, Indonesia, Thailand, Egypt and others) negotiate alone and often pay list prices comparable to high-income countries for oncology drugs. The proposal is a formal negotiation bloc with a shared HTA secretariat, common evidence dossiers, and joint tenders or price agreements for new oncology medicines, backed by the PAHO Strategic Fund model for procurement.
- Prices and value · New cancer drugs routinely cost over $150,000 a year, often for months of benefit. Systems cannot afford them and patients go bankrupt.
- Most of the world has almost no cancer care · Seven in ten cancer deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, where radiotherapy, pathology, surgery and drugs are scarce.