Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) represent the highest burden of disease globally. Medicines are a critical intervention used to prevent and treat CVD. This review describes access to medication for CVD from a health system perspective and strategies that have been used to promote access, including providing medicines at lower cost, improving medication supply, ensuring medicine quality, promoting...

Four years to the month after Parliament passed a law to enable the supply of lower-cost generic medicines to developing countries in need, the first exports are finally about to happen. In this article, Richard Elliott provides an overview of recent developments under Canada's Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR), and identifies key reforms needed to streamline the regime so that it can more easi...

Introduction: A generic drug is a pharmaceutical product that commonly used in place of branded medicine. Generic medications have the same therapeutic effect as their counterparts. The utilisation drugs critical for lowering rising health-care costs, and pharmacy students must thorough understanding medications. Methodology: pre...

PURPOSE There is limited information on pediatric prescribing in Sierra Leone. This study evaluated prescribing patterns for under-five patients at Ola During Children's Hospital (ODCH) and assessed the extent of rational prescribing. METHODS A descriptive, cross-sectional, retrospective study of 294 prescriptions, selected by systematic random sampling was conducted at the outpatient departm...

OBJECTIVE To explore the perspectives of a diverse group of stakeholders engaged in medicines decision making around what constitutes an "essential" medicine, and how the Essential Medicines List (EML) concept functions in a high income country context. METHODS In-depth qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 Australian stakeholders, recognised as decision makers, leader...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the existence of differences in the use of generic medicines in Brazil according to demographic and socioeconomic variables and acquisition sources of the medicines. METHODS Population-based cross-sectional study, conducted with data from the Pesquisa Nacional de Acesso, Utilização e Promoção do Uso Racional de Medicamentos (PNAUM - National Survey on Access, Use and Prom...

Promoting generic competition following patent expiration of innovator product is a key policy strategy in containing rising drug expenditure in both developed and developing countries. However, the effect of this measure on drug prices has not been specifically explored in Malaysia. This paper analyses the potential effect of generic competition on drug prices in the off-patent pharmaceutical ...