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Building castles on sands or quicksands?

The strengths and weaknesses of economic evaluation in pharmaceuticals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2018

Alan Maynard  and
Karen Bloor
Alan Maynard*
Affiliation:
York Health Economics Consortium, University of York
Karen Bloor
Affiliation:
Department of Health Sciences and Clinical Evaluation, University of York
*
Correspondence: Professor Alan Maynard, York Health Economics Consortium, University of York, York YOI 500. Tel: +44 1904 433645; e-mail: [email protected]
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Extract

Economic evaluations of new and existing pharmaceutical products are an essential input into decision-making in health care. Health care systems around the world face steady increases in the total cost of pharmaceuticals. Increasingly, health care funders have to choose which drugs are subsidised and which are not reimbursed from public funds. In psychiatry, a number of new pharmaceutical products have recently been developed for the treatment of depression and schizophrenia which cost considerably more than traditional pharmacological products. Governments and purchasers, with limited budgets and expanded demands for funding, require pharmaceutical companies to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of their new therapies. It is no longer sufficient to consider the clinical or therapeutic effects of new drugs: purchasing choices are predicted on studies which identify, measure and value what is given up when a product is used (the cost) and what is gained (improved health outcome).

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 173 , Issue S36: Economics of schizophrenia , September 1998 , pp. 12 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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