Welcome to the Opioid Price Watch Project

Opioid Price Watch (OPW) is a project to monitor and report the dispensing price of opioids around the world. This project is a component of the agreement of work as an NGO in official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO).

The goal of OPW is to present information and generate awareness about availability and access to opioids for legitimate medical use.

The objectives are to:

1. Provide information on opioid availability globally;
2. Show opioid price patterns among regions and countries, as reflected in differences in treatment costs, affordability, and differences in prices as a ratio of the international reference price; and
3. Allow further analysis of the difficulties in availability and affordability of opioid analgesics and suggest possible strategies addressing the identified problems.

IAHPC developed and implemented a pilot in 2013 to test OPW and reported the information collected on the availability, prices and affordability of 5 opioids (fentanyl, hydromorphone, methadone, morphine, and oxycodone) in 13 formulations. The pilot project was completed in 2014 and the report published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management available free to all (Open Access). The second round was completed in 2016 and a paper published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine. The third round was completed in 2018 and a paper published in Journal of Palliative Medicine.

The first two phases of Opioid Price Watch were funded with grants from the US Cancer Pain Relief Committee and Atlantic Philanthropies.

Clicking the button below, will take you to a map where the different prices of opioids from around the world are displayed.

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Map