Value

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On this page, you’ll find our analysis and commentary analyzing the flaws, risks, and costs created by cost-effectiveness studies. These studies have enormous influence on which drugs are made available to patients and lead to ill-considered policy proposals.

April 23, 2024 Issues, Value

Cost Plus Drug Company CEO Mark Cuban recently pointed out that self-insured businesses could save over $70,000 per employee annually by getting their workers to switch from AbbVie’s blockbuster anti-inflammatory treatment Humira to a lower-cost biosimilar called Yusimry. Humira has a list price of roughly $7,000 per month. Since it lost market exclusivity last year, nine nearly identical copycats have hit pharmacy shelves. A year’s supply of Yusimry costs the same as just one month of Humira. Why doesn’t every employer in America follow Cuban’s advice? The answer has three letters: PBM. Click to read the...

March 7, 2022 Issues, Value

In his last blog post before resigning as director of the National Institutes of Health in December 2021, Francis Collins touted many of the important areas of research NIH conducted or funded in his more than 12 years leading the organization, “from innovative immunotherapies for treating cancer to the gift of mRNA vaccines to combat a pandemic.” He could have added to this list other frontiers of medicine explored by NIH-supported researchers: how the human brain works; the health benefits of the trillions of microbes that call our bodies...

August 24, 2021 Issues, Multimedia, Value

Watch Dr. Wayne Winegarden, director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, discuss his recent study showing how a two-part drug pricing system would ensure prices more accurately reflect how patients value drugs with Scripps National News. The report aired on 60 television stations in 42 markets across the country reaching 31% of U.S. TV households. https://youtu.be/AK1CIGa-w5c...

August 3, 2021 Briefs, Price and Costs, Studies, Value

Establishing a two-part drug pricing system quantifying separate values for a drug’s innovation and production would create an efficient market and a more accurate reflection of how patients value a drug compared to those produced by centralized organizations, argues a new report released today by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute. Click to download “Establishing a Two-Part Drug Pricing System to Promote Value-Based Pricing and Innovation” “Some policymakers assume that only a centralized agency can determine...

April 19, 2021 Multimedia, Policy Proposals, Resources, Value

Watch PRI's Dr. Wayne Winegarden discuss the importance of improving competitions for biosimilars to increase access to these high value medications for more patients on two "Bending the Cost Curve" panel discussions hosted by State of Reform. https://youtu.be/oJTD34j-E-Y https://youtu.be/hu8sWIn3u_A...

March 31, 2021 Blog, Policy Proposals, Value

Despite the constant stream of dour news about drug prices, actions by employer-sponsored plans are providing reasons for hope. Instead of accepting the high-cost of originator biologics, companies as diverse as Disney, Costco, and CalPERS are “asserting their own desire to see biosimilars implemented among their employees.” Capturing these savings during the pandemic only increases their importance. Biologic medicines are high valued drugs that have meaningfully improved patient health, particularly for people living with cancer and auto-immune diseases. These medicines are also...

May 11, 2020 Coronavirus, Issues, Price and Costs, Value

There they go again. In the midst of the race for an effective COVID-19 treatment the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) has performed an incomplete analysis of remdesivir in order to produce a cost estimate that is, by definition, precisely wrong. Remdesivir, produced by Gilead Sciences Inc., is an experimental antiviral medication that did not work as hoped to treat Hepatitis C, but is showing promise as a treatment for viruses such as SARS and COVID-19. If ICER’s analysis were...

June 27, 2019 Price and Costs, Value

Determining whether the prices for medicines are appropriate or not is critically important, which is why studies that attempt to answer this question must stand up to scrutiny. Studies that undervalue medicines jeopardize the development of future cures, while studies that overvalue medicines justify the imposition of excessive health care costs today. Judged against this goal, a recent World Health Organization (WHO) technical report is disappointing. In this report the WHO claims that the industry’s current pricing approach “makes cancer medicines...

June 26, 2019 Price and Costs, Studies, Value

A new poll from the California-based nonpartisan think tank, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), shows that Americans overwhelmingly support innovative gene therapies, which change the focus of medicine from treating illnesses to curing illnesses. Click here to read the top-line results of PRI’s poll on gene therapies “Gene therapies have the potential to cure a wide array of difficult-to-treat diseases, including Alzheimer’s Disease, autism, cystic fibrosis, HIV, and cancer, among others” said Dr. Wayne Winegarden, director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics...

May 11, 2017 Value

An obscure institute that most people have never heard of threatens to impose unwarranted restrictions on medically-advised treatments for patients. The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, or ICER as it is commonly known, assesses whether medicines are cost effective, based on ICER’s definition, of course. These assessments are intended to influence which drugs are made available to patients. From a patient perspective, it is disconcerting that an outside group, which is not an attending doctor, is influencing which FDA approved...

April 5, 2017 Value

One of the cornerstones of Great Britain’s National Health Service is an agency that approves and controls access to prescription drugs, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. NICE recently announced a new policy that could delay and restrict access to new medicines for British citizens if the agency deems they don’t pass its “budget impact test.” A drug may be approved as safe and effective, but patients could still wait for years to get it if the agency...