Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles/RFC on pharmaceutical drug prices

These examples of drug prices for generic pharmaceutical drugs have been taken from the leads of articles. Do you think that this content complies with Wikipedia's standards for verifiability, due weight, no original research, what Wikipedia is not, and how to write a lead section? 01:38, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

The source:

All of these examples use the same source (chosen for simplicity and because it appears in many articles). The source, the International Medical Products Price Guide, is a database of prices voluntarily reported by some organizations and government agencies that buy or sell drugs in low and middle income countries. For example, a "supplier" price may be reported by a non-profit or a for-profit organization that sells drugs only to health organizations and government agencies in a single country, or one that sells drugs to buyers in many countries. The "buyer" price is most often reported by a government, and sometimes by a non-profit or medical missions organization. The "supplier" prices are usually more relevant than the buyer prices, as buyer prices do not include shipping, handling, insurance, or other costs, and some buyer prices involve unusual circumstances (such as atypical prices from local manufacturers). The database's website recommends the median supplier price as the most reliable option, assuming that enough data points are available. Read more about prices on the database's website.

Each database entry also includes some other information, such as the strength and dosage form of the specific drug for that entry (most drugs are available in different strengths; some are available in both liquid and pill forms; each strength and form gets a separate database entry, search here to find examples) and the defined daily dose (read the article). This database has not been updated since 2015. You can look at some statistics about entries in the MSH database.

Three examples:

• Ethosuximide:
  • What the lead says: The wholesale cost in the developing world is about US$27.77 per month as of 2014.[1]
  • What the source says about:
    • Suppliers: The cited database entry lists one supplier, which offered 250 mg tablets of ethosuximide for sale for US$0.1845 each (100 tablets per package) in 2014, only to organizations in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
    • Buyers: The database has no information about buyer prices.
    • The drug: Each pill contains 250 mg of ethosuximide. The defined daily dose is 1.25 grams. There are no other entries in the MSH database for this drug.
• Carbamazepine:
  • What the lead says: The wholesale cost in the developing world is about US$0.07 to US$0.24 per day as of 2015.[2]
  • What the source says about:
    • Suppliers: The cited database entry lists twelve suppliers that offered 200 mg tablets of carbamazepine for sale in packages ranging from 100 to 1,000 pills each in 2014. The lowest price reported by these 12 organizations was US$0.0138 per pill, and the highest price was US$0.0372 per pill, with a median price of US$0.0185 per pill, down 5%. The High/Low Ratio was 2.70.
    • Buyers: The cited database entry lists three governments plus the Central American Integration System. The lowest price reported by these four organizations was US$0.0155 per pill, and the highest price was US$0.0480 per pill with a median price of US$0.0202 per pill, down 9%. The High/Low ratio was 3.10.
    • The drug: Each pill contains 200 mg of carbamazepine. The defined daily dose is 1 gram. There are five other entries in the MSH database for this drug for 2015.[3]
• Diazepam:
  • What the lead says: The wholesale cost in the developing world is about US$0.01 per dose as of 2014.[4]
  • What the source says about:
    • Suppliers: The cited database entry has no information about supplier prices.
    • Buyers: The cited database entry lists two governments that reported buying 10 mg tablets of diazepam in 2014. Both governments report a price of US$0.0100 per pill, so the lowest, highest, and median price are identical, and the High/Low ratio is 1.
    • The drug: Each pill contains 10 mg of diazepam. The defined daily dose is 10 mg. There are two other entries in the MSH database for this drug in 2014,[5] and three for 2015.[6]

Background

In the real world

Drug prices vary according to a number of factors, including dose, formulation (e.g., pill or liquid), manufacturer, country, wholesale vs. retail, what the patient pays vs. what the health program pays, prices before rebates and subsidies, etc. Even within the category of wholesale prices, there are multiple measurements. Many prices are kept confidential, so there are few sources available, and none are comprehensive. Additional information about drug prices can be found at Category:Drug pricing.

What we've got on wiki

You can see several hundred examples of how drug prices are being presented at User:Colin/ExistingPrices. Many of these are from 2014 or 2015 or are otherwise incorrect, so we are looking for your advice on what should/shouldn't be included before we try to fix them.

Related discussions

There was a previous RFC related to drug prices in 2016. Recent discussions on what advice we should give in guidelines include a long thread at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Product pricing and another at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 130#MEDPRICE. This RFC was written at the direction of the community in this discussion and mostly developed at WT:MEDMOS.

This is a marathon, not a sprint

The next goal is to update the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles to include advice on when and how to present information about prices and pricing for drugs. It is likely that there will be at least one more RFC related to this subject area. Everyone's ultimate goal is to build great encyclopedia articles about pharmaceutical drugs.

Discussion

Main question:

Do you think that the content in the examples above complies with Wikipedia's standards for verifiability, due weight, no original research, what Wikipedia is not, and how to write a lead section?

This is a request for your comments, not just a vote! You don't need to "support" or "oppose" anything. Please feel free to ask questions and to respond to this RFC broadly. If you think the text in our articles could be improved, please tell us how you would improve it. If you think an example shows a good feature, please tell us why it's good. Understanding your thought process and what matters most to you will directly help us develop a solid proposal for updating WP:MEDMOS and will ultimately help us improve articles about drugs.

We're going to try to keep comments about the same general subject area together. Don't worry: you don't have to stick tightly to the subject! We know that these areas overlap significantly, so just put your comments in whichever section you think is closest. You can put all of your ideas in one section, or you can put different comments in separate sections.

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This is the section for comments that are more focused on the subject matter than on Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.

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