Bisetegn, Lydia Daniel2026-07-142026-07-142026https://hdl.handle.net/10566/24955Background:In developing countries, medicines represent a major component of healthcare costs. The high cost of drugs can limit funding available for other investments in health and can create unaffordable out-of-pocket costs for individual parents. Understanding medicine pricing policies and their intended and unintended outcomes is crucial. With South Africa having put in place the Single Exit Pricing (SEP) policy in the 2000s for the private sector market, the effects of this policy on the pricing and continuation of selected essential medicines have not been studied for more recent years. The research evaluates the impact of the Single Exit Pricing (SEP) policy on pricing and product continuation trends between 2018 and 2022. This is the first analysis of SEP trends and product continuation between 2018 and 2022, providing recent evidence for policymakers on pricing regulation, product availability, and generic market dynamics. Method: This research used the Mediprax database for a descriptive, quantitative analysis of discontinuations and pricing for a selected basket of South African registered medicines between 2018 and 2022. The World Health Organisation and Health Action International (WHO/HAI) classification was used for product selection. The NAPPI® codes in the Mediprax database which are unique identification codes for healthcare products enabling the electronic transfer of information for reimbursement were used to represent individual Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) which are unique, alphanumeric codes for each specific drug variant (with different dosage form, strength, or pack sizes) to enable tracking of identical inventory.enContinuationdiscontinuationgenericglobal core listoriginatorThesis