About the Collaborative – This activity has concluded

Biopharmaceutical innovation creates opportunities to address unmet medical needs, but at the same time puts stress on public budgets for the purchasing of medicines, because the innovations come with very high prices. Many countries are using confidential agreements to ensure access to important innovative medicines while protecting their budgets. Information on the type of agreements, the terms, and the strategies used to achieve a successful outcome of negotiations with manufacturers is not widely shared – because of confidentiality clauses. Many JLN member countries could benefit from an insider perspective that can help them make better use of negotiations to balance the access to innovative medicines with the need for budget control.

The purpose of the exchange is to identify, share and document strategies and tactics that lead to improved negotiation outcomes, measured by improved value for money when spending public funds on expensive medicines. The World Bank Health, Nutrition and Population team will establish a learning exchange that will bring together practitioners at the country level who are actively involved in negotiations with pharmaceutical manufacturers or are planning to introduce such negotiations into their repertoire of tools. This group will exchange experiences and benefit from the facilitation and experience of experts that have been involved in such negotiations – on the buyer side as well as on the side of the companies making these expensive medicines.  

The Learning Exchange will comprise four virtual joint learning sessions for the participants selected through the EOI process. These sessions will be a mixture of short presentations and discussions covering the above subject from different perspectives, with the goal to enable participants to prepare and lead successful negotiations with manufacturers.

The content of the events, presentations and discussions will be used to write a “pocket guide” for negotiating with pharmaceutical manufacturers, with helpful tips and checklists.

Topics covered in the sessions include:

• Principles and goals of negotiated agreements
• The manufacturer perspective – which “red lines” do manufacturers perceive, which concessions are more likely to be granted
• Negotiation strategies, including preparation, stages of negotiations, creating a positive atmosphere, managing conflicts, making decisions
• Long-term relationship management to improve future outcomes
• Critical enabling factors for making best use of the spectrum of negotiated agreements

Collaborative Countries

• Bangladesh
• Ghana
• Indonesia
• Kenya
• Liberia
• Malaysia
• Namibia
• Philippines
• Vietnam