Medication cost development

The needs of modem medicine require sophisticated measuring devices for a wide range of chemical species in very complex matricies. Due to fundamental breakthroughs in the 1950 s and 1960 s, electrochemical methods have proven to be extremely valuable in meeting such needs. This past success, coupled with the current trend in the United States and western Europe towards cutting medical costs while still maintaining quality of care is largely responsible for the present fast pace of research and development in the area ... 

New medications cost himdreds of millions of dollars to develop. 

Since international justice requires developed nations to help reduce global health inequalities, and one of the best ways of reducing health inequalities is to promote access to medications for developing nations, it follows that international justice requires developed nations to help developing nations attain access to medications, especially those used to treat or prevent infectious diseases. There are two different access issues that need to be addressed availability and cost. 

Tetrahydrolipstatin is a lipase inhibitor developed and marketed by Roche (Basel, Switzerland) as an anti-obesity drug. With the incidence of obesity rising rapidly in the industrialized nations, having reached 33% of all adults in the United States and more than a quarter of all French schoolchildren, this problem will rapidly cease to remain one of lifestyle and enter the arena of medical costs associated with the diseases stemming from obesity. 

Consumer demands for greater access to medications has prompted the development of a fourth tier. This differs in that it introduces the concept of coinsurance, or percentage copay to consumers. Medications in this tier would be covered as a percentage of total medication cost as opposed to a set copay amount. For example, fertility medications might be covered at 50% of their total cost. The patient would pay 50% and the pharmacy benefit would pay 50%. Thus providing the consumer and the physician with an incentive to discuss considerations of cost. 

The true incidence of VTE in the general population is unknown because a substantial portion of patients, perhaps greater than 50%, have cLinicaUy silent disease. An estimated 2 million people in the United States develop VTE each year 600,000 are hospitalized, and 60,000 die. The estimated annual direct medical costs of managing the disease are well over 1 billion and growing. The best available data indicate the age-adjusted annual incidence of symptomatic VTE in Caucasians to be 117 per 100,000. The incidence of VTE nearly doubles in each decade of life over the age of 50 and is slightly higher... 

Considerations are a bit different in patients with early CKD since Medicare does not cover medication costs for this population. The lack of payment is a deterrent to timely implementation of therapy and likely contributes to the development of secondary complications such as anemia. A recent pharmacoeconomic consideration in the CKD population is whether the addition of darbepoetin alfa offers a financial incentive in addition to advantages of less frequent dosing from a patient s perspective. As use of darbepoetin has become more widespread and the costs more stable, clinicians involved in the care of this patient population are begiiming to consider economic factors that influence selection of erythropoietic therapy. ... 

Although the direct medical costs of anemia are unknown, the direct costs of drug treatment must be weighed with the indirect costs associated with anemia. The costs of laboratory tests used to diagnose anemia, the role of screening for anemia, and the prevention of anemia are aU components that necessitate consideration in the phar-macoeconomic analysis. Anemia practice guidelines within medical subspecialties must take pharmacoeconomics into consideration as they are developed. Additionally, the frequency of blood transfusions must be considered, as it impacts cost and therapeutic decision making in patients. 

In general, the use of Bayesian network meta-analysis has broad applicability to evaluate AEs between related drugs. These methods can provide insight to prescribers and also assess cost-effectiveness. The direct probability statements that result from the Bayesian approach are helpful to decision makers evaluating a variety of medical products for a given therapeutic area/indication. Furthermore, the information obtained from the network meta-analysis can be utilized throughout the medical product development life cycle in simulations to design future clinical trials. 

In the past 5 years the use of smartphones as mHealth platforms caused an exponential growth in the development of medical devices. Nonetheless, the use of smartphones carries with it issues about costs, development time, and compatibility, as it is noticed that many of the solutions are device dependent most of them require an iOS-based device, which people from low-income regions cannot afford. Moreover, similar to the text-based mHealth solutions, the security and privacy of the data collected will remain a concern. 

For this chapter, the author focused on accident costs assumed by employers, the direct costs of which are the legally required indemnity payments and the medical costs paid, with all other related costs being the indirect costs. As will be seen, other studies are made to develop the costs of injuries and illnesses to society. Because of the differences in cost allocation methods, those studies are of little value in determining employer costs. 

Medical product development in Vietnam is still in the beginning steps and it is clear that Vietnam lacks both technology infrastructure as well as strong BME human resource. The continuous and sustainable development strategies, supports and investments from the government are urgently needed in order to reduce the cost and meet the big need of diagnosis and treatment in Vietnam. 

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