Regulating the economic evaluation of pharmaceuticals and medical devices: a European perspective

Throughout the developed world, economic evaluation of costly new pharmaceuticals and medical devices became increasingly widespread and systematic during the 1990s. However, serious concerns remain about the validity and relevance of this economic evidence, and about the transparency and accountability of its use in public sector reimbursement decisions. In this article, we summarise current concerns in Europe, based on interviews with European health economists from industry, universities, research institutes and consulting firms. We identify five challenges for European policy-makers, and conclude that there is considerable scope for improving decision-making without damaging incentives to innovate. The challenges are: (1) full publication of the economic evidence used in reimbursement decisions; (2) the redesign of licensing laws to improve the relevance of economic data available at product launch; (3) harmonisation of economic evaluation methodologies; (4) development of methodologies for evaluation of health inequality impacts; and (5) negotiation of price/performance deals to facilitate the use of economic evidence in post-launch pricing review decisions, as information is gathered from studies of product performance in routine use