OHE at ISPOR Europe 2018

Meet some of the OHE team at the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Europe 2018 conference in Barcelona, 10-14 November.

Meet some of the OHE team at the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Europe 2018 conference in Barcelona, 10-14 November.

The theme for ISPOR Europe 2018 is New Perspectives for Improving 21st Century Health Systems. OHE’s Adrian Towse, Graham Cookson, Nancy Devlin, Martina Garau, Koonal Shah, Amanda Cole, Margherita Neri, and Chris Sampson will all be attending the conference and contributing to the programme in a variety of ways.

Short course: Risk Sharing / Performance-Based Arrangements for Drugs and Other Medical Products

As in previous years, Adrian Towse will present a short course on the theory and practice of payment schemes with Louis Garrison and Josh Carlson from the University of Washington.

Short course: Using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis in Health Care Decision Making: Approaches & Applications

This course, delivered in part by Nancy Devlin, provides an introduction to multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for health care. The course is designed for those unfamiliar with MCDA, but who have a basic understanding of other evaluation methodologies.

Educational symposium: How Should We Measure Quality of Life Impact in Rare Disease?: Recent Learnings in Spinal Muscular Atrophy

The focus of this symposium, moderated by Martina Garau, is to highlight the challenges of measuring quality of life in the context of Health Technology Assessment & reimbursement of new medicines, and the approaches to address them. These challenges risk hindering the availability of life-changing treatments for children with rare diseases.

Educational symposium: Indication-based Pricing; Who Wins, Who Loses, and Where Next?

This symposium will explore current literature and perspectives on the rationale for indication-based pricing (IBP). The presenters, including Adrian Towse, will propose fundamental questions to consider as the implementation of IBP advances.

Forum: Triangulating Developers, Regulators and Payers to Reap Rewards and Address Challenges with Curative Therapies

An upcoming themed section in Value in Health will feature papers dedicated to a number of issues pertaining to therapies aimed at returning individuals to normal states of health, which may include regenerative, biologics, gene therapies, as well as novel medical devices or procedures. Authors of these papers, including Adrian Towse, will present on topics that include regulatory and market access challenges, methodological issues in assessing the value of such interventions, as well as potential financing mechanisms to manage risks.

Issue panel: Global Biopharmaceutical Innovation—Too Much, Too Little, or Both?

This panel, including Adrian Towse, will address how we might gauge whether we have too much or too little innovation, or possibly both (depending on product or disease type), and how to design policies that support appropriate balance.

Issue panel: HTA Value Based Pricing Versus WHO Fair Pricing. Which Delivers Universal Health Coverage?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is arguing that value-based pricing alone is not a viable basis for the correct basis for assessing essential life-saving medicines. In addition to looking at differential pricing, cost-effectiveness and local thresholds, it argues for “fair pricing” that also considers affordability and the actual costs of production and research. Adrian Towse will moderate this session in which speakers will discuss the basis for decisions about which drugs to include in universal health coverage benefit packages for low- and middle-income countries.

Issue panel: Transforming Healthcare: The Impact of Patient Engagement

Nancy Devlin will take part in this panel, which will provide an overview of the global emergence of patient engagement and a brief history of the patient movement towards evidence-based advocacy and meaningful and substantial patient involvement. The panellists will identify how patient engagement has influenced the EU perspective on health policy and is transforming the EU regulatory system. A view from the US will demonstrate the various ways patients are engaging in healthcare research. The panel will conclude with a dialogue on the lessons learned and a path for the future.

Issue panel: What Does Patient-centered Care Mean for Medicine in the Welfare States of Europe?

Panellists, including Adrian Towse, will consider recent findings that imply a need to justify the notion that increases in healthcare expenditure (and new medical technology in particular) are in accordance with the preferences of the citizenry.

Poster: Establishing an Aligned View of Modern, Forward-looking HTA Process

This poster, by Margherita Neri, Grace Hampson, and Adrian Towse, explores whether an aligned view of modern, forward-looking health technology assessment process exists, or can be established.

Poster: Should Drug Prices Differ by Indication? Outlining the Debate on Indication-based Pricing and How It Has Been Implemented

To address the challenge of ensuring price reflects value, indication-based pricing (IBP) has been proposed. With this poster, Amanda Cole, Bernarda Zamora, and Adrian Towse summarise the current state-of-play for IBP, both in theory as summarised by the key literature, and in practice by investigating its use in the U.S. and five major European countries.

Poster: Quality of Life in Long-term Cancer Survivors: Implications for Future Health Technology Assessments in Oncology

In the economic modelling of immunotherapies, the question arises of which utilities should be assigned to patients who show steady long-term survival. In recent critiques of such models by NICE, the idea that long-term cancer survivors (LTCS) who have received such treatments could report quality of life (QoL) scores which are similar to, or higher than, those of equivalent general population samples has not been viewed as credible. The objective of this study, by Patricia Cubi-Molla, Koonal Shah, Nancy Devlin, and collaborators is to examine whether there is evidence to support the assumption that the QoL of LTCS can be similar to that of age/sex-matched population samples.