Good quality and correct description of public procurement data guarantees integrity and efficiency in the procurement of medicines. This guide prepared by Transparência Brasil summarizes how to properly describe procurement items and indicates good practices when filling in data on medicines purchased.

The lack of standardization in descriptions of concentration and pharmaceutical form of medicines, for example, limits price research by civil servants, hinders competition between bidders, and prevents society from identifying irregularities in contracting. For this reason, the aim of this material is to increase the transparency and quality of the data, ensuring that strategic tools such as the National Public Procurement Portal are useful for social control.

• The Medicines Procurement Guide presents fundamental tips and precautions so that the data can be reused as a reference in future contracts;
• The practices can be adopted in the routine of purchasing agents or incorporated into the systems used for purchases by municipalities and states;
• The material was produced based on documents from the Ministry of Health and the Federal Court of Auditors, as well as TB’s experience in processing public procurement data from the National Public Procurement Portal.