Transferability: International Differences In Value-For-Money

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 01 Oct 2009 - 1:00 PDT

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Cost-effectiveness ("value-for-money") studies of new, innovative drugs have become mandatory for reimbursement in a majority of OECD-countries. Good decision making need studies that are representative for the country of interest and should preferably be conducted in that country or use data from that country. However, this is not always possible or feasible in practice, so a lot of data are borrowed from other countries.

The cost-effectiveness of a drug can vary considerably between countries and the health-economic field of "transferability" investigates if and in what way cost-effectiveness results from one country can be translated to another country. A long list of potential factors contributes to the variation.

A recent study, "Crossing Borders: factors affecting differences in cost-effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions between European countries", published in Value in Health, set out to explain which factors caused the differences in cost-effectiveness of smoking cessation therapies between six European countries. The study was co-authored by Pepijn Vemer and Maureen Rutten-van Mölken of the Institute for Medical Technology Assessment (iMTA) or the Erasmus University Rotterdam.

The results will be discussed in more detail in volume PM, issue PM of Value in Health, the official journal of the International Society of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR), where we also discuss how societies willingness to pay for a QALY (quality adjusted life year) affects the impact of the transferability factors.

According to Dr. Rutten-van Mölken, "although previous research has identified many transferability factors, this is one of the first studies systematically quantifying the impact of a wide range of between-country differences, amongst others smoking prevalence, epidemiology and costs of smoking-related diseases, and the costs of the smoking cessation therapies. We found for example a more than threefold difference in the net benefits of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (nicotine patches, gum, etc) versus unaided cessation between the most and the least cost-effective countries. An important cause of this difference was a difference between countries in incidence and mortality rates of smoking-related diseases."

Value in Health (ISSN 1098-3015) publishes papers, concepts, and ideas that advance the field of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research and help health care leaders to make decisions that are solidly evidence-based. The journal is published bi-monthly and has a regular readership of over 4,000 clinicians, decision-makers, and researchers worldwide.

Source
ISPOR

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