International Reference Pricing: New Rules for a New Era

International reference pricing has been a fact of life for multinational pharmaceutical companies for many years. Not long ago, most companies only concerned themselves with reference pricing among the EU5 markets. Today, such narrow vision would devastate a brand’s pricing integrity. Pricing executives must now concern themselves with other rapidly developing economies that are drafting policies that reference other emerging markets, while anticipating the day that established markets follow suit. IRP
may be manically multivariate and confusingly complex, but a full understanding of IRP policies is possible – and when combined with effective communication between global and local affiliates, price integrity and launch order optimisation can be achieved. To begin this process, a thorough exploration of various IRP policy types should be conducted, culminating with a new lens through which to view economic
development, pricing opportunity, and design launch sequence.