ANALYSIS OF THE CHANGES IN PRICING REGULATION ON LEADING ANALGESICS MEDICINES PRICES AND UTILIZATION IN BULGARIA

In 2004, the new pricing regulation was enforced in Bulgaria. It liberates the OTC medicines pricing procedure from reference pricing to registration according to marketing authorization holder proposal. The goal is to analyse the changes in the pricing regulations concerning OTC and its impact on prices and utilization of analgesic medicines. Two main hypotheses are tested in the study. H1: The changes in the price regulation liberate the market in terms of increase in the analgesics utilization; H2: The changes in the regulation lead to the decrease in prices. Regulatory and market analysis were performed focusing on procedures for price settlement and their changes for 4 international non-proprietary names (INNs) of analgesics on the local market – methamizole sodium, paracetamol, ibuprofen, acetylsalicylic acid for the period before and after the changes in the regulation. The descriptive statistic, z-test for proportions, and one way ANOVA analysis were performed to evaluate the statistical significance of the changes in utilization and prices. An increase in the analgesics utilization has been observed in 2006 compared to 2003. Increase in utilization was found to be statistically significant for all INN and thus confirms our first hypothesis. After the changes in the regulatory control we observe the increase in the mean official and market prices of methamizol and paracetamol in 2006 and decrease in 2009. The prices of ibuprofen decrease in 2006, but in 2009 the officially registered price increased while the market one remains lowest. For acetylsalicylic acid the mean prices decreased slowly in 2003 and then increased in 2009. All changes in the prices were not statistically significant even when we compare the prices in 2009 with the ones in 2003. Thus our second hypothesis is not confirmed. The liberalization of the price control led to increase in utilization but also to increase in prices.