Room: Phillips 407
Time: Tue 08:30 AM-10:00 AM

A Global Perspective on Pharmaceutical Pricing and Costs

Chair: Eric Keuffel

Session Description

This session explores pharmaceutical pricing and costs from both a domestic and global perspective. Differential access to pharmaceutical therapy is a primary public health concern. New drugs often hold tremendous promise but at prices that can be substantially higher than existing drugs. Treatment regimens that include new agents could result in significant costs. It is therefore important to evaluate whether these treatment regimens provide health benefits that are worth the additional costs. This challenge is particularly difficult in middle and low income countries where patents may make drugs unaffordable.
The first paper in this session focuses on new chemotherapy drugs for colorectal cancer, and studies the implications of these new drugs on changes in chemotherapy regimens and associated costs in the United States. Enrollment and claims information from the PharMetrics Integrated Claims Database are studied. The second paper examines a similar issue focusing on cross-country differences in chemotherapy treatments of three cancers. Using data from IntrinsiQ, authors decompose spending differences across countries into a component reflecting different prices for the same chemotherapy regimens and a component reflecting different treatment regimens. The third paper focuses on pharmaceutical pricing in middle and low income countries (MLICs). It provides new and more detailed evidence on ex-manufacturer drug prices between and within MLICs. The authors use data on drugs to treat HIV-AIDS, TB and malaria from two sources: IMS and the WHO’s Global Price Reporting Mechanism (GPRM).

Key Terms None Listed

Session Organizer: Pinar Karaca-Mandic (University of Minnesota)

---

Presentations

1. The Impact of New Drugs and Biologicals on the Treatment and Cost of Colorectal Cancer

   Presenter: Pinar Karaca-Mandic (University of Minnesota)

   Discussant: Gilbert Gimm (Mathematica Policy Research)

2. What Does the US Buy and What Does It Get From Its Cancer Chemotherapy Purchases Compared to European Nations?

   Presenter: Sean Nicholson (Cornell University)

   Discussant: Patricia Danzon (University of Pennsylvania)

3. Drug Pricing in Emerging Markets: Empirical Evidence

   Presenter: Patricia Danzon (University of Pennsylvania)

   Discussant: Sean Nicholson (Cornell University)