Why Patient Engagement Is Essential for Market Access of Medical Innovation in Belgium
In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that medical innovation is not only a technical or economic issue. It is also a social and ethical one. New treatments, ranging from well-known drugs to advanced therapies such as ATMPs, are reshaping expectations for patients and healthcare providers. Yet these innovations continue to face complex market […]
Separate or hybrid economic models?
The Pros and Cons of Using a Single Economic Model for Both Budget Impact and Cost-Effectiveness Analyses Those with experience in health economics will likely have their own perspective on this topic. There are multiple advantages and disadvantages to using a hybrid model that accommodates both a Budget Impact (BI) Analysis and a Cost-Effectiveness (CE) […]
The value of a proven pricing structure
If a pharmaceutical company targets to sell a pharmaceutical specialty in Belgium, the Minister of Economy must first approve a maximum price, after assessment by the price committee consisting of 15 members. The applicant must propose an ex-factory price for each registered packaging they wish to trade in Belgium. If a reimbursement procedure is initiated […]
Model hygiëne
If you’re familiar with simulation models you will undoubtedly recognize this… Once the simulation model is made available, you dive into it with the usual enthusiasm. Selection options are traced and (dynamic) input fields and result areas are located. At first glance, everything looks flawless. The model seems to be working well and the supplier […]
Willingness to Pay (WTP) versus Medical Need
A health economic analysis is usually measured over three dimensions: delta costs, health gain (expressed in QALYs or live years gained) and time. Together, these three parameters result in an ‘incremental cost-effectiveness ratio’, or ‘ICER’ for short. The ‘ICER‘ is a well-known measure to assess the extra cost to be invested to win one QALY […]
How to deal with uncertainties?
As we all know, simulation models should predict the targeted outcome(s). The outcome can be the estimated budget, health gain (e.g. OS prediction) or any other quantification related to the subject of the analysis. As valid for almost all models, the designer should build a model that will quantify the potential effect without losing the […]
The value of ‘Net Monetary Benefit’
How to indicate if an innovation is worthwhile to pay for in view of the claimed benefit it will bring? Per assumption, innovation will change ‘something’ versus the current situation . In theory, the goal of innovation is to generate an improvement versus the current situation. Healthcare is a business focusing on optimisation of resource […]
How to compare 2 data sets?
In our former blog, we stipulated the need for reliable clinical data when comparing 2 interventions. But, how to define ‘reliable clinical data’? Even when data are scientifically correct the way they are used in comparisons can reduce the reliability of the results. No need to say that decision makers prefer to see an analysis […]
Health state transition models
‘Simulation models’ are an important instrument to simulate the impact of the introduction of innovation over time. These models are commonly used in health economic assessment to predict the potential costs over time taking into account the clinical efficacy. If the concerned innovation would be introduced on national scale, it would be very difficult to […]
Inflation vs discounting
All market access colleagues involved in the preparation of economic files will be confronted with the aspect of inflation. There are 2 viewpoints versus ‘today’. We can analyse the past or we can estimate the future. In general, most countries rely on official numbers from national offices for statistics like StatBel in Belgium or the […]