1. WHO Technical Report on Cancer Pricing Misses the Mark—It Should Focus on the “Demand Side”
- Author:
- Kalipso Chalkidou, Adrian Towse, and Richard Sullivan
- Publication Date:
- 04-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Criticising cancer medicine pricing as too high is what football fans know as an "open goal"—a target that is hard to miss. Yet somehow the World Health Organization (WHO) Technical Report on Cancer Pricing manages to do just that with a paper to the WHO Executive Board calling for price and cost transparency. The assumption goes that transparency will reduce the prices and costs of cancer medicines, a mantra that has united the Trump administration, the US Congress, and the Italian health minister with many NGOs who have called for “greater cost and price transparency”—a sentiment echoed by KEI, which states that “international action is required to improve transparency in reporting the costs of R&D and production, including public sources of funding.”
- Topic:
- World Health Organization, Health Care Policy, Medicine, Cancer, and Price
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus