The Summer School is organised by the WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Policies, located at Gesundheit Österreich GmbH (GÖG/Austrian National Public Health Institute) in Vienna, Austria.
About the WHO Collaborating Centre (https://ppri.goeg.at/whocc)
The WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Policies was nominated in summer 2010 and re-designated as a centre for expertise in summer 2014 and 2018 by the World Health Organization (WHO). The Centre has a dedicated team of researchers working closely with the WHO at international and European levels. It facilitates the development of a public health approach in pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement policies through research, exchange and dissemination of the evidence base of best-practice models and knowledge transfer. The long-standing expertise at the WHO Collaborating Centre has been built upon numerous national and international projects, initiatives and networks.
A special initiative within this context is the Pharmaceutical Pricing and Reimbursement Information (PPRI) network. PPRI was originally an EU-funded project (2005 – 2007) which aimed to improve information and knowledge on pharmaceutical systems in Europe, since no such initiative existed at that time. In the course of this project, the PPRI network was established. Since 2008, PPRI has continued as a voluntary Member States driven initiative because policy makers represented in the PPRI network expressed their strong interest to continue the cooperation.
Eligible institutions for PPRI are competent authorities for pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement. As of 2022, the PPRI network comprises around 90 institutions from 50 countries (all 27 EU Member States, plus Albania, Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Iceland, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and Ukraine) and European Commission services and agencies, OECD, WHO and the World Bank. For further information see https://ppri.goeg.at/PPRI_networks.
At regular intervals (usually every four years) the WHO Collaborating Centre organises international conferences. For the documentation of the last conferences, please visit: https://ppri.goeg.at/ppriconference2019 and https://ppri.goeg.at/events.
The WHO Collaborating Centre has in-depth expertise in medicine price surveys, analyses and comparisons. It maintains the Pharmaceutical Price Information (PPI) service which offers independent, reliable and up-to-date medicine price information at ex-factory, wholesale (pharmacy purchasing price) and pharmacy retail price levels of 30 European countries.
The WHO Collaborating Centre has been regularly offering trainings and courses for staff of competent authorities all over the world.
For further information on the WHO Collaborating Centre see https://ppri.goeg.at/, including the library of publications accessible at: https://ppri.goeg.at/publications