European governments should align medicines pricing practices with global transparency norms and legal principles

Advocates of transparency argue that openness about a medicine's price components (ex. research and development (R&D) costs, production costs, discounts and rebates etc.) is essential to know whether the price is ‘fair’ to the seller and the buyer.4 This Comment highlights the normative basis for transparency, and recent initiatives in Europe supporting increased transparency of medicines and medical product price components. Aligning governments’ transparency practices with their commitments and legal principles is urgent as cross-country collaborations (for medicines information sharing, and joint assessment and price negotiation) take shape in Europe, and as the European Commission expands its role in centralized medicines procurement.5