Pharmacoeconomics Is Coming of Age

Translational pharmacology: role and its impact

“…The treatment that costs few hundred dollars two decades ago is replaced with the new drugs which cost in excess hundreds of thousands of dollars adding to the economic burden in treating the same disease conditions. 3,4 Far beyond the established pharmacotherapy of various medical conditions many diagnostic and therapeutic products of uncertain impact are offered to the patients that are known to concourse with several factors such as the ageing process, unestablished clinico-pathological correlation etc. In such instances translational medicine would be dynamic to meet the optimum healthcare requirements that range from diagnosis, therapeutic strategies, discovery and development of drug.…”

Drugs, money and society (Part II)

“…The Obama administration has invested more than $1billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but at present it is highly controversial as to how this will be used. To many on this side of the Atlantic, it looks like reinventing this particular wheel [15]. But just as health economic studies do not cross borders well because of changing contexts and patterns of healthcare, perhaps each country has to develop its own approach to the organization and administration of pharmacoeconomics.…”

“…Many European countries have also followed the UK lead in setting up agencies to evaluate these issues. Belatedly, the USA has recognized the need to undertake the kind of comparative effectiveness research, with health economics, that has been meat to NICE and NHS research programmes for many years.The Obama administration has invested more than $1billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,but at present it is highly controversial as to how this will be used.To many on this side of the Atlantic, it looks like reinventing this particular wheel [15].But just as health economic studies do not cross borders well because of changing contexts and patterns of healthcare, perhaps each country has to develop its own approach to the organization and administration of pharmacoeconomics.…”

Pharmacoeconomics in the Era of Individualized Medicine

“…1 The historically favorable cost-benefit relationship suggests an opportunity to improve health-care economics by shifting the emphasis in patient management from hospitalization to pharmacotherapy. 2,3 Moreover, a crisis in drug development-whose success rate has declined from ~12% to ~7%, associated with an increase in development costs nearing $2 billion for each marketed drug-restricts the availability of new therapeutic agents. 2,3 Moreover, a crisis in drug development-whose success rate has declined from ~12% to ~7%, associated with an increase in development costs nearing $2 billion for each marketed drug-restricts the availability of new therapeutic agents.…”

“…1 However, drug costs also are escalating, and therapies that cost a few hundred dollars two decades ago have been replaced with drugs that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. 2,3 Moreover, a crisis in drug development-whose success rate has declined from ~12% to ~7%, associated with an increase in development costs nearing $2 billion for each marketed drug-restricts the availability of new therapeutic agents. 1 This confluence of crises in health care and drug development in the context of the aging population, associated with an increased demand on these systems, underscores the critical emergence and dynamic evolution of pharmacoeconomics, the modern discipline of health economics, which critically assesses the value of health therapeutic strategies.…”