Medical Device Spare Part Pricing Strategy Analysis for Developing Nations

Levels of accessibility to functioning medical equipment and devices varies from nation to nation. Developing countries have limited accessibility as malfunctioning or broken medical equipment is often thrown away with no available replacement – limiting healthcare capabilities of the area. Cost of replacing medical parts or equipment is often seen as a large barrier in developing nations. Kijenzi is a social enterprise that is able to manufacture replacement parts and at a fraction of the cost from international competitors as it is locally manufactured and 3D printed. A cost structure that is suitable to providing profit to Kijenzi, and social enterprises alike, while ensuring the medical products are financially accessible to the customers must be established in order to ensure a sufficient number of sales will occur in Kisumu, Kenya – where Kijenzi is based. 3D printed medical parts were valued by biomedical engineers and procurement officers in order to collect data to analyze relationships between cost to print, cost of the device, and part valuation as seen by the hospital representative. This method was compared to different, industry-used, pricing methods such as tiered and equity pricing, along with the standardization and adaptation schools of thought to gain a better understanding of which would be more applicable to a developing country. Medical devices that break often and are needed more frequently were seen to have higher spart part to machine cost ratio, indicating that these spare parts were generally valued more than ones that do not need to be replaces as often.