The cost of entry: An analysis of pharmaceutical registration fees in low-, middle-, and high-income countries

BACKGROUND Advances in pharmaceuticals offer improved health outcomes for a wide range of illnesses, yet medicines are often inaccessible for many patients worldwide. One potential barrier to making medicines available to all is the cost of product registration, the fees for regulatory review and licensing for the sale of medicines beyond the cost of clinical trials, if needed. METHODS AND FINDINGS We performed a cross-sectional analysis of pharmaceutical registration fees in low-, middle-, and high-income countries. We collected data on market authorization fees for new chemical entities and for generic drugs in 95 countries. We calculated measures of registration fee size relative to population, gross domestic product (GDP), and total health spending in each country. Each of the 95 countries had a fee for registering new chemical entities. On average, the ratio of registration fees to GDP was highest in Europe and North America and lowest in South and Central America. Across individual countries, the level of registration fees was positively correlated with GDP and total health spending, with relatively few outliers. DISCUSSION We find that, generally speaking, the regulatory fees charged by medicines regulatory authorities are roughly proportional to the market size in their jurisdictions. The data therefore do not support the hypothesis that regulatory fees are a barrier to market entry in most countries.