Abstract

In Finland, the drug retail prices are determined with a regressive pharmaceutical pricing scheme (PPS) that leads to higher absolute sales margins for products with higher wholesale prices. At the same time low-priced products are sold at prices below the true costs of drug delivery. Despite these characteristics retail prices are used to represent all drug costs in health economic evaluations that are required before societal reimbursement of new drugs can be granted. We assessed the impact of PPS induced cost differences on the results of cost-utility analyses in hypothetical examples. The examples show that the Finnish PPS worsens the ICERs obtained for more expensive pharmaceuticals. The Finnish PPS is problematic when the aim is to provide Finnish patients with optimal, cost-effective treatments. In its current form, the PPS discourages innovation and comparability of results with other settings, and may prevent reimbursement of otherwise cost-effective treatments.