Forecasting Pharmaceutical Prices for Economic Evaluations When There Is No Market: A Review

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Tien Dat Tran
  • Ilke Akpinar
  • Philip Jacobs

• Background Economic evaluation helps policy makers and
  healthcare payers make decisions on drug listing, coverage,
  and reimbursement. When economic evaluations are conducted
  before a product launch, the prices of the pharmaceuticals
  have to be forecast.
  Objective The aim of this study was to examine the
  methods of establishing proxy prices and their accuracies
  compared with actual market prices after the product
  launch.
  Methods We searched the literature for evaluations for
  drugs that were licensed in the US between 2010 and 2015.
  We reviewed the studies for the forecasting strategies used,
  and then estimated the difference between actual 2016
  post-launch prices and what the proxy prices would be if
  the forecast was carried out in the US in 2016.
  Results We identified six such studies, with seven drugs.
  Four studies used substitute drugs as proxies for the study
  drug, and three used other methods. The range of the values
  of actual minus proxy price varied considerably, and no
  trend was observed.
  Conclusion Forecasting drug prices is as precarious as
  forecasting in other areas of the economy. We urge caution in reviewing and accepting a cost-effectiveness ratio that is
  based on forecast prices.

• Date created

  2017-07-12

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Economic evaluation
  • Pharmaceuitical price

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3F18ST6F

• License

  Public Domain Mark 1.0