title: The Impact of a Pricing Policy Change on Retail Prices of Medicines in Egypt.
abstract: To describe the products with price changes and assess the impact of price changes on the products' price and affordability within the context of the Egyptian market.
  
  
  
  A descriptive pre-post observational study was conducted. We selected March through June 2013 as the post-change observation period. A matching pre-change observation period, one year earlier, was selected to be consistent with potential seasonal variation in product use.
  
  
  
  It was found that 65.7% of the products with price changes were low-priced generic products. The overall average percent change in price was 24.7%. Before decree #499 implementation, the average affordability of the low-, medium-, and high-priced products was 0.25 days' wage, 2 days' wage, and more than 100 days' wage, respectively. After the implementation, the cost increase for the low- and medium-priced products was less than 0.1 days' wage, whereas the high-priced products' cost decreased by 11 days' wage.
  
  
  
  The policy change resulted in both price decreases and increases without substantive implications on affordability.
authors.affiliation: CORE-Acute Hospital Care, Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA. Electronic address: omneyadarwiche@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Omneya
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Mohamed
authors.affiliation: School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.
authors.forename: David H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Kreling
mesh_terms: D003132:Commerce; D016527:Drug Costs; D018954:Drugs, Essential; D016568:Drugs, Generic / Q000191:economics*; D004534:Egypt; D006291:Health Policy; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D040541:Marketing
chemical_list: D018954:Drugs, Essential; D016568:Drugs, Generic
keywords: Egypt; decree #499 and direct price control; external reference pricing; medicine; prices