RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: To suggest a scheme of decision making on pricing for medicines that are part of Free Regulated Regime, a regulation way of the pharmaceutical pricing policy in Colombia. It includes two regulation tools: international reference prices and a cost minimization analysis methodology. METHODS: Following the current pricing policy, international reference prices were built with data from five countries for selected medicines, which are under Free Regulated Regime. The cost minimization analysis methodology includes selection of those medicines under Free Regulated Regime with possible comparable medicines, selection of comparable medicines, and treatment costs evaluation. RESULTS: As a result of the estimate of International Reference Prices, four medicines showed in the domestic pharmaceutical market a bigger price than the Reference Price. A scheme of decision-making was design containing two possible regulation tools for medicines that are part of Free Regulated Regime: estimate of international reference prices and cost minimization analysis methodology. This diagram would be useful to assist the pricing regulation of Free Regulated Regime in Colombia. CONCLUSIONS: As present results shows, international reference prices make clear when domestic prices are higher than those of reference countries. In the current regulation of pharmaceutical prices in Colombia, the international reference price has been applied for four medicines. Would be suitable to extend this methodology to other medicines of high impact on the pharmaceutical expenditure, in particular those covered by public funding. The availability of primary sources about treatment costs in Colombia needs to be improved as a requirement to develop pharmaco-economic evidence. SISMED is an official database that represents an important primary source of medicines prices in Colombia. Nevertheless, having into account that SISMED represents an important advantage of transparency in medicines prices, it needs to be improved in quality and data availability.