Republic Act (RA) 9502 otherwise known as the Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008 has set forth several instruments to monitor and regulate the prices of medicines with the objective of protecting the consumers and the public procuring entities from excessive mark-ups due to information asymmetry and lack of effective market competition.

To address these issues, the DOH Pharmaceutical Division established the Drug Price Reference Index (DPRI) for all essential medicines to guide all national and local government health facilities in the efficient sourcing of pharmaceutical products in the public sector.

The DPRI aims to guide all public health facilities in the fair pricing of essential medicines and to increase the efficiency of drug procurement process in the public sector. Likewise, it aims to maximize the health care budget by generating savings to prevent corruption in the sourcing of essential medicines not only among DOH hospitals but also across all public health facilities