23 Pharmacoeconomics: Economic

and Humanistic Outcomes

Raymond J. Townsend, Jane T. OsterhausandJ. Gregory Boyer

Increased competition makes it imperative to hold
down healthcare costs while maintaining or
increasing quality. This has dictated changes in
the traditional drug development path. For most
of the past 40 years, the development of most
pharmaceutical products has followed a predict-
able path from discovery to preclinical and clinical
development, approval and marketing. To maxi-
mize the commercialization and clinical use of a
product, successful drug development today must
now focus on measuring other outcomes of a phar-
maceutical intervention. Capturing data that docu-
ment clinical response is no longer a sufficient
objective of drug development programs.
Economic and humanistic outcome evaluations
are now made as part of healthcare governance.
The information gained from valid outcome mea-
sures can be used on a national level to allocate
expenditures for treating various sectors of the
population (e.g. the elderly, neonates, etc.) or to
determine which programs will receive financial
resources (e.g. vaccine programs vs. acute influ-
enza treatments). Outcome information can be
used to help make decisions regarding the inclu-
sion or exclusion of drugs on formularies. Com-
plete information about the economic, humanistic

and clinical impacts that medications have on spe-

cific patients can help healthcare providers make

better prescribing decisions.

Decision makers, including prescribers, provi-

ders, payers and patients, all want to maximize the

value received for the money spent. Value to a

prescriber might mean achieving a desired clinical

impact for the cost of drug; value to a payer could

mean spending more for a drug that reduces the

number of days in a hospital, thus reducing the total

economic impact of a condition. Value to a patient

or employer might also be making sure that the

drug prescribed maintains quality of life (QOL) or

worker productivity. To be successful, the pharma-

ceutical developer must address the needs of all

these decision makers. To do this, it is imperative

that drug development programs today include

quantitative measures of economic, clinical and

humanistic value of the drugs they develop. It is

never too early to begin to think about how the

value of a product will be demonstrated.

The intent of this chapter is to help pharmaceu-

tical developers and researchers understand how to

document the economic and humanistic value of

pharmaceuticals through appropriate pharmacoe-

conomic development programs.

Principles and Practice of Pharmaceutical Medicine, 2nd Edition Edited by L. D. Edwards, A. J. Fletcher, A. W. Fox and P. D. Stonier
#2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd ISBN: 978-0-470-09313-9