Best possible pricing
Novo Nordisk offers human insulin to the public health systems in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), as defined by the United Nations, at prices not to exceed 20% of the average price in North America, Europe and Japan.
Performance 2006
In 2006 Novo Nordisk offered the below pricing scheme to all 50 LDCs and sold insulin to a total of 34 LDCs (see map) at or below this price, compared to 32 in 2005. For various reasons there are 15 countries to which Novo Nordisk is not selling insulin at all. In several cases the government has not responded to the offer, either because there are no private wholesalers or other partners with which to work, or because wars or political unrest sometimes make it impossible to do business.
While Novo Nordisk prefers to sell insulin at the preferential price through government tenders, it is willing to sell to private distributors and agents. The target is to offer the best possible pricing scheme to the governments of all LDCs. Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee that the price at which Novo Nordisk sells the insulin will be reflected in the final price on the pharmacist’s shelf. Novo Nordisk works with governments to encourage tenders so that there is a greater chance that the preferential price will benefit the people for whom it is intended.
Best possible pricing scheme
Novo Nordisk activities to provide access to health in developing countries (as defined by the United Nations) | |
Policy on pricing in developing countries/access initiatives | Best possible pricing scheme in Least Developed Countries |
Number of countries supplied with medicines under the best possible pricing scheme | 34 |
Number of countries eligible for best | 50 LDC’s |
Number of patients receiving medicines (quantity or description of best proxy/estimate) | Estimated number of people in 34 LDCs that receive insulin from Novo Nordisk: 110.000-290.000 depending on their access to a daily dose |
Number of units sold under best | 68% of units sold to the 50 LDCs are sold to 34 countries under the LDC best pricing scheme |
Incidence of product diversion/parallel | Yes |
Measures taken to address these | Novo Nordisk has decided to monitor but not to take any action against parallel imports from these countries |
Supply arrangements for best possible pricing scheme medicines | Novo Nordisk has local distributors who take contact with the government as part of normal business |
