Selection of drugs for adding to li

Selection of drugs for adding to list is performed in IDSC
by considering of efficacy and safety, rationality in use,
accessibility, and affordability altogether. To assess the
agreement between decisions of drug selecting committee
and standardized NDP indicators in the last 5 years
(1998–2002), an additional weighted questionnaire was
designed based on the questions that should be answered
about any drug during decision in IDSC. Questionnaire
mostly included questions about the history and documentations
on efficacy and safety of drugs and also pharmacoeconomics
assessment of drugs that are usually
provided by applicants. In addition, information related
to above fields that are usually obtained from reliable and
independent sources by expert team of the secretary of
IDSC were included. Additional questions were about
identification of applicants and history of clinical trials
especially in Iran, approval record of drug by international
agencies like FDA, existence of drug standard treatment
guidelines (STGs), potential to be produced by local
factories, the supportive coverage umbrella like subsidization
and insurance, and also price of the nominated drug.
This information was designed in a 29-question form with
yes/no pattern. The ideal point for questionnaire could be
acquiesced with all positive answers except one. Final
decision for a new molecule to be added to NDL is performed
in IDSC with ten members who are selected and
authorized by minister of health. Therefore, questionnaire
was weighted by nominal group technique and by 10
members of IDSC who had mostly participated during
last 5 years in IDSC meetings. The relation between each
question and four indicators of NDP including: "efficacy
and safety", "affordability", "availability and accessibility"
and "rationality in use" have been asked and in case of
each positive relation, the member of IDSC was asked togive a score from 1–5 for that indicator and for negative
answer we considered the score of zero for it. Related to
the point which obtained from the IDSC's opinion, any
"yes" answer for each question could acquire scores in the
range of +1 to +5 and the answer "no" got score 0 for each
indicator. Fifty-nine drugs during 1998–2002 have been
approved by IDSC's members. Their weighted questionnaire
was filled out for each medicine separately and the
results were reported by means of percentage of
agreement.