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Objectives This study was conducted to assess the National Health Insurance Fund ( NHIF) program in Sudan in terms of the expenditure trends over the period of 5 years (2006 and 2010), their value of usage and the pattern of medicines expenditure. Methods The standard tools for analysing aggregate medicine data ( ABC and VEN) analysis were used. The total value of consumption was calculated by multiplying quantities by unit cost, and the total values sorted in descending order. The percentage of total value for each item was calculated. Similarly, for Vital, Essential and Non-essential (VEN) analysis, the NHIF medicine lists (2006 and 2007) were classified as vital, essential or non-essential medicines (based on explanatory statement for physician, medical doctors and pharmacists). Key findings ABC analysis showed that small number of items ( n = 80, 16.98%) in Class A account for large proportion of the fund (70.19%), whereas large number of items ( n = 288, 61.15%) of Class C account only for 9.92% of the total fund. Similarly, the VEN analysis showed that small number of items ( n = 11, 2.34%) of Class V account for 5.46%, whereas Class N consists of 212 (45.01%) items that account for 26.43% of the total fund. The medicine class that accounted for the highest expenditure were medicines related to general anti-infectives for systemic use (40.37%) and it made the largest contribution to increases in the total medicine expenditure (48.59%). Conclusions The findings reveal that relatively small number of items accounts for most of the value of the supply fund and non-essential items represent around half of number of NHIF items and account for around quarter of the total fund. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]