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In the 1999 settlement of a lawsuit by the state of California, 19 pharmaceutical firms were required to provide $150 million worth of drugs free of charge to 200 California clinics and hospitals over three years. The Public Health Institute (www.phi.org), an independent, nonprofit organization, was responsible for distributing these drugs in a fair and equitable manner. In 2001, six more firms and $20 million dollars were added to the project. The decision-support system for the drug distribution project (DDP) used management science and operations research concepts to distribute drugs in a timely and fair manner, taking into account various clinic, pharmaceutical, and allocation constraints. Many uninsured patients who would otherwise have had difficult or no access to medication have received their prescribed drugs and sustained their health. Although an accurate count of the patients affected is not available yet, we estimate that 2.6 million, 30-day drug prescriptions were filled as part of DDP between April 2000 and February 2003. Further, many pharmaceutical firms are exploring using the DDP's decision-support system to improve operation of their charitable drug programs.
Key words: health care: pharmaceuticals; decision analysis: systems.
The Drug Distribution Project (DDP) was created in the fall of 1999 to implement the drugdistribution portion of Master Agreement of Settlement and Release of Pharmaceutical Cases I, II, and III in the Superior Court of the State of California, City and County of San Francisco, J.C.C.P. Nos. 2969, 2971, 2972 ("Settlement Agreement"). In this settlement of a lawsuit by the state of California, 19 pharmaceutical firms agreed to provide over $150 million worth of drugs free of charge to a number of California clinics and hospitals over a threeyear period. The Medpin (medicine for people in need) program (www.medpin.org), originally called pharmaceuticals and indigent care program, of the Public Health Institute (www.phi.org) in Oakland, California, an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes health for people throughout California and the US, was responsible for distributing these drugs in a fair and equitable manner. The Drug Distribution Project (DDP) was an unprecedented drugordering and distribution system combining brandname drugs from multiple companies, hundreds of diverse safety-net clinics serving indigent Californians, and a specially designed, Internet-based ordering system. From April 1, 2000 to July 8, 2001, the DDP distributed products...