Exposing $62m in potential pharmaceutical savings in Southern Africa

The Southern Africa Regional Programme on Access to Medicines and Diagnostics (SARPAM) has painstakingly collected and published data on the price and availability of medicines used by members of the Southern African development community. The study revealed huge variations of prices between countries, with public and private sector health groups in Southern Africa having the potential to save over $62m simply by switching to generic medicines, and being charged the same price as other countries. If this data was openly published, it would allow for the prices of medicines to be easily compared and savings to be made. For example, Prescribing Analytics, a joint venture of NHS doctors, academics and London tech startups used open data on the prescription records of family doctors in the UK to reveal over £200m in potential National Health Service savings, where generic drugs could have replaced branded versions.

View the report Supporting sustainable development with open data from The Open Data Institute.