Contribution of Pharmacoeconomics to Enhancing the Pharmaceutical Industry Development
The culture of evidence-based healthcare, quality-linked incentives, and patient-centered actions, driven by the natural financial constraints on health systems budgets, led to a growing interest by decision and policymakers in expanding Health Technology Assessment (HTA) criteria to Pricing and Reimbursement (P&R) of a given technology (e.g., drug, vaccine, procedure, service), especially in disease areas with high unmet need or significant health and economic impact. Thus, in the past years, most administration and regulatory bodies around the globe improved their technologies’ approval procedures to be grounded on scientifically sound, cost-effective evidence aiming at maximizing value for patients, healthcare payers and society in light of increasingly limited healthcare resources.
Pharmacoeconomics, broadly defined as the branch of health economics that measures the costs and outcomes (risk/benefits) associated with the use of health technologies is one of the central pieces of the P&R process that relies on the findings of different types of analyses (such as cost-of-illness, budget impact and cost-effectiveness analysis) for the decision-making. Yet, for this process to occur, the involvement of relevant stakeholders, such as the pharmaceutical industry, is strongly advised as it can strengthen the legitimacy of HTA as well as increase transparency, acceptance, and use of health products. Although Pharmacoeconomics may be time consuming, expensive, and a complex process (considering the need of several resources), it is indispensable for pharmaceutical industries to communicate the value of their products to external decision-makers (i.e., payers, prescribers) as well as to anticipate and achieve regulatory and reimbursement approvals.
Moreover, technologies that undergo economic evaluations are perceived to have an ‘added value’, which may contribute towards their commercial success (marketing and promotion strategies). Additionally, considering that the research and development (R&D) of new technologies is long and costly, the use of Pharmacoeconomics in early development phases may provide useful and internal (for the company) inputs into the design of clinical development programmes, portfolio management and optimal pricing strategies which are likely to increase the efficiency of R&D resources use. Yet, most pharmaceutical industries outsource these activities to contracted companies or partners (e.g., private associates, consultant services, universities) that are specialized in performing economic evaluations.
Although simpler models, usually in more advanced phase of products’ life cycle (III or IV), can be performed in-house (considering that executives in departments handling price and reimbursement are often familiar with or have an educational background of HTA methods), most industries prefer to hire external services aiming at having more impartial and valid analysis. Nonetheless, given the above-mentioned contributions of Pharmacoeconomics to the pharmaceutical industry, the investment in specialized in-house health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) departments alongside with increased awareness and support for HTA capacity building are paramount to further advance both the company and the Healthcare field.
Fernanda Stumpf Tonin, PhD/Professor
