The Pharmaceutical Sector Scan is intended to assemble a core set of existing information about a country’s pharmaceutical sector and to highlight key information gaps. It will assess how medicines for primary care are supplied and used. Medicines for hospital inpatient care, while important, are not the focus of this sector scan. Data on primary care medicines may already exist in a variety of different government and private sector institutions or they may have been reported in previous national or international surveys.

The Pharmaceutical Sector Scan will assist national MeTA stakeholder groups in their efforts to improve transparency in the pharmaceutical sector and to set priorities for future activities. Collating a large body of relevant information about medicines in a standardized, userfriendly format will facilitate systematic analysis and point to areas where key information gaps exist.