Pharmaceuticals cost-benefit analysis

The basic approach for performing economic assessments of pharmaceutical products, as discussed above, has been adapted from the general methodology for cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis. 

Lai LL, Sorkin AL. Cost-benefit analysis of pharmaceutical care in a Medicaid population From a budgetary perspective. J Manage Care Pharm 1998 4 303-308. 

Cutler and Kadiyala s (2003) estimates of life expectancy benefits associated with improved cardiovascular treatment suggest a high value of pharmaceutical products relative to costs. An analysis at the national level would provide confirmation that the value of pharmaceuticals is not limited to cardiovascular disease. Here we performed such an analysis for Canada, where the public funding of health care has led to extensive debate over its value and, more specifically, over the value of pharmaceutical products whose rate of growth within the health care budget continues to increase. 

Etemad LR, Hay JW. 2003. Cost-effectiveness analysis of pharmaceutical care in a medicare dmg benefit program. Value Health 6 425. 

Institute of Statistical Smdies. Technological Assessment of Drug Therapy-Analysis of Cost—Benefit Studies on Pharmaceuticals. Institute of Statistical Studies Tokyo, 1988. 

Institute of Statistical Studies (1998) Technologieal Assessment of Drug Therapy—Analysis of Cost-Benefit Studies on Pharmaceuticals, Tokyo. 

Other problems also cloud Mueller s and Reardon s findings. The benefits of R D cannot be obtained without investments in plant and equipment that produce the products and, in the current market, without the advertising and promotion necessary to sell them. While R D may be a necessary condition for obtaining high returns, firms must invest in those seemingly less profitable activities as well. Analysis of the market returns on investment as a whole in the seven largest pharmaceutical companies in Mueller s and Reardon s study found only three of the companies with stock market returns greater than the cost of capital.37... 

Another critique of the pharmaceutical industry, published at about the same time, is by Jerry Avom, who describes himself as a pharmacoepidemiologist. Titled Powerful Medicines The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs, Avom s analysis is more statistically oriented, but he reaches essentially the same conclusions as Angell. 

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