The Hidden Value of Adult Informal Care in Europe

That is the title of a paper from Costa-Font and Vilaplana-Prieto (2025). They find the the value is very large indeed. Relative to a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the value of IC [informal care] ranges between 4.2% in France and 0.85% in Germany. Such relative value declines as the country’s share of formal LTC…

Methods for Including Adverse Events in Economic Evaluations

That is the title of a great review paper by Salah Ghabri, Dalia Dawoud and Michael Drummond. They discuss that guidance on the incorporation of adverse events (AEs) into economic models has not been standardized. Nevertheless, this paper provides helpful guidance. Specifically, the paper explores: (1) the incorporation of AEs in economic decision models, (2)…

HTA and cell and gene therapy

A paper by Drummond et al. (2023) examines how health technology assessment bodies deal with the challenge of value assessment for cell and gene therapies (also known as Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) in Europe). To do this the authors: …undertook i) a targeted review of the literature on the clinical and economic evidence needs…

SHEER: Good practices for incorporating family and caregiver spillovers into health economic evaluations

Illnesses impact not only the patients, but oftentimes impact caregivers and family members as well. However, most economic analyses do not incorporate a diseases’ spillover impacts on caregivers. …a recent review of NICE evaluations revealed that only 3% of technology appraisals included caregiver health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in cost-utility analyses (CUAs). Similarly, Lamsal [2022]…

Valuing treatments for rare disease

That is the topic of a recent white paper from the Innovation and Value Initiative titled “Valuing Rare Disease Treatments in Healthcare: Real Experience, Real Impact“. The report notes a number of challenges in assessing treatment value in rare disease (see my white paper “Challenges in Preserving Access to Orphan Drugs Under an HTA Framework”…