Members of the World Health Organisation (WHO) agreed on Tuesday to push for clearer drug pricing but stepped back from proposals by activists to force pharmaceutical firms to disclose the cost of making medicines.

Activists said drug companies can charge high prices for some medicines and governments spend too much, because they negotiate without knowing how much each drug actually costs to make.

Drug companies argue that cost information is a commercial secret.

They said new drugs should be priced according to the benefits they bring to patients, regardless of production and development costs, to ensure companies have a commercial incentive to tackle disease. An earlier draft of the resolution would have given the WHO explicit powers to collect and analyse data on procurement prices and costs from clinical trials. However, that wording was omitted from a draft published on Tuesday.

The agreed text of the resolution, which was initially proposed by Italy, “urges member states in accordance with their national and regional legal frameworks and contexts” to publicly share information on net prices and support dissemination and enhanced availability of data.

WHO member states would also pledge to support dissemination of information about the costs from clinical trials, if it is already publicly available or voluntarily provided, regardless of the outcome of the trial.

James Love, head of the transparency campaign group Knowledge Ecology International, called the resolution a “solid start” in addressing the issue but said the text made “tortured dances around R&D costs”.

“Overall, the resolution represents an impressive statement on price transparency, at a time when non-disclosure agreements have become increasingly common,” said Love.

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