‘We need to be part of the solution’: lessons from the 2024 PPRI Conference on ensuring access to affordable medicines through innovative policies

On 25–26 April 2024, the 5th PPRI (Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Information) Conference on ensuring equitable access to affordable medicines took place in Vienna (Austria). Twenty-four accepted contributions were presented either as oral presentations or posters, adding to invited keynote lectures, stakeholder debates and workshops. The global multi-stakeholder audience discussed a range of approaches in pharmaceutical policies, which have the potential to successfully and sustainably address current and future challenges in ensuring patient access to affordable medicines globally. These discussions benefited from the interaction between policy-makers, stakeholders in the private sector and researchers who provided evidence on implemented and piloted policies. Among the policy options that drew the most attention during the PPRI Conference were procurement with targeted instruments to achieve strategic objectives, innovative payment models such as different variants of managed-entry agreements, and new models to fund pharmaceutical research and development. Experiences on established policy options that are being newly introduced in several countries, such as price regulation, health technology assessment, evidence-based selection for reimbursement decisions and measures to enhance the uptake of biosimilar medicines were also shared. The PPRI Conference reaffirmed the relevance of pharmaceutical pricing, procurement and reimbursement policies aligned with policy actions in other areas and along the pharmaceutical life-cycle and emphasised the importance of developing needs-driven health systems. Innovation in policy-making is needed to work towards equitable patient access to affordable medicines. This requires transparency, alignment on evidence requirements, communication, coordination, intra-country and international collaboration, solidarity and trust.