Supply of Pharmaceutical Products

The Department of Health has confirmed there is an ongoing requirement for the range of pharmaceutical products covered by the existing arrangement HCNS110709.

The Department of Finance has also identified a need to have a separate whole of government arrangement to meet the pharmaceutical needs of government agencies (other than the Department of Health) and other Potential Customers (collectively ‘non-Health customers’).

Two separate contractual arrangements will be awarded as a result of this Request; a Department of Health, agency-specific arrangement and a Common Use Arrangement (CUA). The terms of the two arrangements will differ slightly. Where the terms differ, this will be clearly articulated in this Request document.

The scope of products to be covered under the tender will include the following:

• Sole supply or drugs that are patent protected; and
• Generic Pharmaceutical Products with multiple providers for the same product.

Products will be categorised into two broad market segments:

Drug Group A – Sole Supply Drugs: These are pharmaceutical products which have a single supplier in the market. Patented and/or highly specialised drugs are to be tendered under this Drug Group.

Drug Group B – Competitive Drugs: These are pharmaceutical products where there is effective competition in the market. Generic drugs are to be tendered under this Drug Group.

Contract Design

The proposed new arrangement will be a significant redesign of the current Pharmaceutical Products Contract - HCNS110709 and it is anticipated that it will include (but not be limited to) the following features:

• Improving the supply of products to WA Health: A significantly expanded range of pharmaceutical products to promote aggregation of spend across WA Health and using more effective measures to ensure the reliability to supply.

• Improving WA Health’s response to market changes: Provision to re-test the market using supplementary (refresh) tendering processes on an ad hoc, as required basis.

• Greater flexibility in the State-wide arrangement: Provision to allow WA Public Health Care Units to approach Suppliers to negotiate the supply of patented pharmaceutical products at a site level.