Pharmacoeconomical analyses

General information

In this section various types of cost-effectiveness analysis are prepared. They concern the profitability of different kinds of technology and procedures applied in medicine and health care. ’Comparative analysis of alternative ways of proceeding with both cost and consequences’ can be described as the pharmacoeconomical analysis. Preparation of the pharmacoeconomical analyses requires thorough and precise examination of the following aspects:

• Data access to sources needed
• Perspective from which costs need to be calculated
• Effectiveness of clinical procedure
• Target population
• Market prognosis/ market research

As a result, in the process of creating this kind of report specialists from many different fields are engaged. These are physicians, statisticians, mathematicians, economists and others.

Types of reports

Depending on the problem following economical analysis are prepared:
1. Pharmacoeconomical analysis – which involves several types of analysis: cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-utility analysis, cost-minimization (minimal cost) analysis, cost-efficiency analysis, cost-benefit analysis – and is used to describe a relation between costs and results of alternative health care methods
2. Decision analysis – which allows to identify all available therapeutic strategies relevant to considered health problem and to define related costs and consequences, and as a result it simplifies the choice of the best therapeutic strategy
3. Budget-impact analysis – is used in order to estimate consequences which budget payer will face after establishing financing the procedure or technology
4. Modeling – it is the best solution to obtain data, which are unavailable using other methods: this type of analysis can function as a separate report or exists as a part of any analysis described before.

While compiling source values and results from different types of analysis using data basis is inevitable – commonly basing on statistical data and particularly epidemiological data obtained and prepared for a specific population. The pharmacoeconomical analysis of specified therapeutic procedures is always prepared regarding EBM and HTA guidelines which are defined in ‘The Cochrane Reviewer’s Handbook’.

The Pharmacoeconomical Analyses Section takes great care for each report to use the best available data and makes sure that both methods or types of analysis which are used are adequate for the problem being solved.