ICER Unveils New Value-Based Drug Pricing That Includes Additional Cost of Living Longer
Calculates How Drugs Increase Health Spending By Increasing Life Expectancy
Boston, Mass. April 1, 2016 – The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) has posted an updated version of its value based pricing benchmark that takes into account whether new medicines, by allowing people to live longer, contribute to health care spending growing faster than the overall economy.
Currently, ICER establishes a price range within which all patients could be treated with reasonable long-term care value without adding short-term costs to the health care system and increasing health spending more rapidly than growth in GDP.
The new ICER benchmark will include the price of drugs for cancer, HIV, rare childhood diseases and Alzheimer’s and any cost generated by increasing life expectancy.
“We need prices that make sense,” said ICER President Steven Pearson, MD. “Right now, it’s often a black box: we don’t know if we are getting good value with new drugs at these higher prices. A drug even one that saves money in the short term could, by keeping people alive longer, actually wind up costing us more. Our value benchmark currently looks only that whether or not drug spending exceeds an arbitrary cap that maximizes PBM and insurance profits. The new benchmark now measures the value of drugs in terms of how longer life eats into those profit margins.”
“ICER’s new program will make a huge difference by providing what is sorely needed: a source of information about how much rebate money we can pocket before people die,” stated Steve Miller, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Express Scripts, the nation’s largest pharmacy benefits manager. “We look forward to using it to help us improve the ability of patients to get access to new, innovative drugs that keep them alive as little as possible and at a price that maximizes our profits.”
ICER, funded by a $5.2 million grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF), ICER will produce public reports on new drugs that have the potential to significantly change patient care and health system budgets. As LJAF Vice President Kelli Rhee explained:
“Death is the most cost-effective way of lowering medical costs. If we can find drugs that are good at keep people alive for just a teeny, tiny bit – at least until they pay the next month’s insurance premium – we can make great progress to reining in unsustainable drug spending.”
The new benchmark will be used in developing reports that determine how to ration new drugs. Many of the reports produced will be discussed at the public meetings of ICER’s two core programs, the New England Comparative Effectiveness Public Advisory Council (CEPAC) and the California Technology Assessment Forum (CTAF). ICER tells the media that CEPAC and CTAF are independent, regional bodies of practicing physicians, methodological experts, and leaders in patient advocacy and engagement that provide objective, independent guidance on the application of medical evidence to clinical practice and payer policy decisions in New England and California. But that’s bullshit. They are no more independent of ICER than Crimea is independent of Russia.
In case you didn't know...The press release is an April Fools joke. Just one of many I have seen and received. April Fools’ Day 2016: Round-up of the best (and the worst) joke and prank headlines
Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/01/april-fools-day-2016-round-up-of-the-best-and-the-worst-5788075/#ixzz44axY1sL6
Calculates How Drugs Increase Health Spending By Increasing Life Expectancy
Boston, Mass. April 1, 2016 – The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) has posted an updated version of its value based pricing benchmark that takes into account whether new medicines, by allowing people to live longer, contribute to health care spending growing faster than the overall economy.
Currently, ICER establishes a price range within which all patients could be treated with reasonable long-term care value without adding short-term costs to the health care system and increasing health spending more rapidly than growth in GDP.
The new ICER benchmark will include the price of drugs for cancer, HIV, rare childhood diseases and Alzheimer’s and any cost generated by increasing life expectancy.
“We need prices that make sense,” said ICER President Steven Pearson, MD. “Right now, it’s often a black box: we don’t know if we are getting good value with new drugs at these higher prices. A drug even one that saves money in the short term could, by keeping people alive longer, actually wind up costing us more. Our value benchmark currently looks only that whether or not drug spending exceeds an arbitrary cap that maximizes PBM and insurance profits. The new benchmark now measures the value of drugs in terms of how longer life eats into those profit margins.”
“ICER’s new program will make a huge difference by providing what is sorely needed: a source of information about how much rebate money we can pocket before people die,” stated Steve Miller, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Express Scripts, the nation’s largest pharmacy benefits manager. “We look forward to using it to help us improve the ability of patients to get access to new, innovative drugs that keep them alive as little as possible and at a price that maximizes our profits.”
ICER, funded by a $5.2 million grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF), ICER will produce public reports on new drugs that have the potential to significantly change patient care and health system budgets. As LJAF Vice President Kelli Rhee explained:
“Death is the most cost-effective way of lowering medical costs. If we can find drugs that are good at keep people alive for just a teeny, tiny bit – at least until they pay the next month’s insurance premium – we can make great progress to reining in unsustainable drug spending.”
The new benchmark will be used in developing reports that determine how to ration new drugs. Many of the reports produced will be discussed at the public meetings of ICER’s two core programs, the New England Comparative Effectiveness Public Advisory Council (CEPAC) and the California Technology Assessment Forum (CTAF). ICER tells the media that CEPAC and CTAF are independent, regional bodies of practicing physicians, methodological experts, and leaders in patient advocacy and engagement that provide objective, independent guidance on the application of medical evidence to clinical practice and payer policy decisions in New England and California. But that’s bullshit. They are no more independent of ICER than Crimea is independent of Russia.
In case you didn't know...The press release is an April Fools joke. Just one of many I have seen and received. April Fools’ Day 2016: Round-up of the best (and the worst) joke and prank headlines
Read more: http://metro.co.uk/2016/04/01/april-fools-day-2016-round-up-of-the-best-and-the-worst-5788075/#ixzz44axY1sL6
