Workshop at UCL

Next week, we’ll have the pleasure to host Mike Paulden, James O’Mahony and Chris Sampson. Mike is coming back to the UK in the run-up to the holidays and so we jumped on the suggestion that they would be willing to come and give a talk on their work on appropriate approaches to setting the cost-effectiveness threshold — this is something we discussed a few years back in another one of our Christmas time seminars…

Technically, this event/workshop is jointly organised by us (in Statistical Science) and my brilliant colleagues at the UCL Centre for Global Health Economics.

Here are some details.

Title: A new conceptual framework for pricing medicines: beyond cost-effectiveness thresholds

Date and time: 5 December 2019, 11:45am-1:15pm

Agenda:

11:45am – Presentation by Mike Paulden (45 minutes)

12:30pm – Response by Chris Sampson (20 minutes)

12:50pm – Q&A moderated by James O’Mahony (25 minutes)

Venue: Kennedy Lecture Theatre, Ground Floor, 30 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1EH

Abstract:

A critical consideration in the economic evaluation and pricing of new medicines is the specification of an appropriate cost-effectiveness “threshold”. Until now, health economists have focused on two conceptually different approaches for specifying this threshold: estimation of society’s “willingness-to-pay” for health gains (a “demand side” approach); and estimation of the “opportunity cost” of adopting new medicines (a “supply side” approach).

In this international workshop, Mike Paulden, Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health, University of Alberta (Canada), will present a new conceptual framework for pricing medicines which moves beyond these two approaches. Building upon conventional considerations of willingness-to-pay and opportunity cost, the proposed framework allows decision makers to take account of the economic benefits that new medicines provide to “consumers” and “producers”. This supports decision makers in setting balanced prices for new medicines — prices that are high enough for manufacturers to realize a return on their investment, yet low enough for medicines to improve population health. This framework was included in a recent report published by the PMPRB, the federal government agency responsible for setting maximum prices for medicines in Canada.

A response will be given by Chris Sampson, Principal Economist at the Office of Health Economics (UK). Chris works with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and industry clients on matters relating to cost-effectiveness thresholds, so is ideally placed to comment upon the proposed framework from both a consumer and producer perspective.

After the presentation and response, a question and answer session will be moderated by James O’Mahony, Research Assistant Professor at the Centre for Health Policy and Management, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland).

Please pass on this invitation to colleagues who might also like to attend!

Hope to see you there!