Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Are hospitals compliant with price transparency rules? The era of CRISPR has arrived. AMA urges coverage of obesity drugs. Mark Cuban’s cost plus model gaining traction among competitors. The worst job ever? Solution to fixing primary care physician shortage is obvious.
How long does it take different countries/regions to approve new medications? The US is the fastest and Europe is the slowest among selected major pharmaceutical markets according to a report by EFPIA. Moreover, while a majority (7 out of 10) of therapies in the US rely on expedited approval, in Europe less than 1 in…
Different health technology assessment bodies use different discount rates. ICER uses 3%. NICE uses 3.5%, but allows for a 1.5% discount rate as an alternative approach in certain circumstances. What does the US’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) use? A OMB press release from last week recommends that government agencies use: …2.0% for effects…
This weekend prior attending ISPOR 2023 in Copenhagen, I visited the Cisternerne Museum. The museum is a unique as it a (literal) underground art museum that is housed in a former water reservoir (and dripstone cave). While the museum currently had an interesting light-based art exhibit from South Korean artist Kimsooja, perhaps even more interesting…
According to a recent paper by Doshi et al. (2023), the answer is ‘yes‘! Why do people think otherwise? Many people are concerned that there may not be a sustainable way for the private group insurance market, particularly in small self-insured firms, to cover gene therapies? If a firm—particularly a smaller, self-insured firm—gets one or…
What is the Bayh-Dole Act? What does the word liberal mean? Who should make IP rules in health: nations, WHO or WTO? Who Will Care for Older Adults? What’s going on in Copenhagen next week?
At least that is according to an NBER working paper by DiSalvro and Hill (2023). The abstract is below: Previous research in the US has found negative health effects of contamination when it triggers regulatory violations. An important question is whether levels of contamination that do not trigger a health-based violation impact health. We study…
Biosimilar drugs for biologic treatments are analogous to generic drugs for branded small molecules. Switching to biosimilars after biologic patent expiry can save payers and patients money. Why doesn’t it happen more often? There are a variety of reasons but a paper by Bond et al. (2023) argues that the 340B program incentivizes hospitals to…
This is a question that can be answered empirically but doing so is challenging. While cross-country comparisons are feasible for comparing public and private health care provisions, often there are many other differences between health care systems across country. Within any given country, there is significant selection bias in terms of who receives public vs.…
What would happen if we allowed drug importation? An analogy from the European PC market. Infant deaths in the US on the rise. 14 year-old invests cancer-fighting soap. UK firms to consider private health insurance? Is the AMA for or against single payer?