Pfizer launches e-payment scheme for emerging markets

Pfizer is reaching further into emerging markets with the launch of an e-payment scheme that offers patients deep discounts on the company’s products.

The programme will come to Russia first, offering discounts of up to 50%, before being rolled out to other emerging markets, such as Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela, according to the Financial Times.

Pfizer’s head of emerging markets Jean-Michel Halfon told the FT: “The eCard is an innovative way to partner with society, patients and governments, to help manage chronic diseases at an affordable price.”

The eCard programme aims to increase the use of higher-priced drugs by providing discounts to the majority of patients in emerging markets who have to pay for their own medicines.

It will allow discounted prices but this incentive should be offset by an increase in sales, and the tracking system required to subsidise pharmacists for the discounts also allows Pfizer some access to patients’ medical information and thus a potentially high volume of market data.

In the Philippines an estimated 2.2 million patients are now in the system, which used by 110,000 patients in Indonesia and 18,000 in Malaysia.

Last year Pfizer established an Emerging Market Business Unit that works across more than 70 countries, but prioritises six markets – China, India, Brazil, Russia, Turkey and Mexico.