title: Tendering for outpatient prescription pharmaceuticals: what can be learned from current practices in Europe?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore the current status (2010) of tendering programs for outpatient pharmaceuticals in the European countries and how these programs operate.
  
  
  METHODS
  A survey was designed to assess the features of tendering programs in European countries. All 27 countries of the European Union plus Norway were included in the study. The survey was sent to national representatives of authorities and organizations and to academic researchers with expertise in the domain.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Nineteen of the 28 countries have responded to the questionnaire (68%). Seven countries have adopted tendering programs for pharmaceuticals in ambulatory care. Tendering was more popular in countries with a mature generic medicines market (54%) than in countries with a developing generic medicines market (12.5%). A legal basis, criteria to grant the tender, the number of winners and the duration of the tender were amongst the features for the program to work.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Tendering programs can achieve savings in the short term. There are however some problems allied with the policy and the effects in the long term are still unclear. It can be concluded that the policy can work, but the features of the programs have to be well-thought-out.
authors.affiliation: Research Centre for Pharmaceutical Care & Pharmaco-economics, K.U.Leuven, Herestraat 49, O&N 2, P.O. Box 521, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. pieter.dylst@pharm.kuleuven.be
authors.forename: Pieter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dylst
authors.forename: Arnold
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vulto
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Simoens
mesh_terms: D000553:Ambulatory Care; D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D005062:European Union; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D009664:Norway; D055553:Prescription Drugs / Q000191:economics*
chemical_list: D055553:Prescription Drugs