BusinessWire.com, December 15, 2006

Healthcare Policy Experts Examine Promise and Pitfalls of Using Cost-Effectiveness Analysis to Determine Patient Access to Biotech Medicines

SAN FRANCISCO -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- The California Healthcare Institute (CHI) and the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) have assembled policy experts from Australia and the U.S. in San Francisco today to discuss the pros and cons of applying prospective cost-effectiveness analysis to insurance coverage of prescription drugs and how doing so might influence patients’ access to innovative medicines for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions.

As state and federal policymakers search for ways to rein in drug spending, they are considering approaches used in foreign countries, particularly Australia, which requires evidence of comparative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness as prerequisites for drugs to be included in the National Health Service’s Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme.

“With so much emphasis on controlling drug costs in Medicare and Medicaid, policymakers need to ensure that ‘cost-effectiveness’ does not become a code word for rationing,” said David L. Gollaher, Ph.D., president and CEO of CHI. “One of our top priorities is to make certain that patients have access to the best medicine, even when the best medicine is expensive.”

A recent study by the Executive Health Policy Consortium titled “Second-Class Medicine: The Implications of Evidence-Based Medicine for Improving Minority Access to Life-Saving Drugs and Therapies” will be discussed at the forum by one of the study’s authors Kwabena Adubofour, M.D., medical director, East Main Clinic and Stockton Diabetes Intervention Center. “In theory, the concept of evidence-based medicine suggests a potentially powerful tool that can reduce health care inequities, and, in the long-term, cut health care costs,” Adubofour stated. “However, the approach alone without other innovative measures will not adequately address disparities in healthcare outcomes for all patients.”

In addition to Adubofour, the “Evidence, Economics, and Politics: Australia’s Experiment in Evidence-Based Medicine” forum speakers include: Meryl Comer, journalist and caregiver; Randolph Frankel, vice president of public affairs and government relations, IMS Health; Marjorie Ginsburg, executive director, Sacramento Healthcare Decisions; John R. Graham, director, Health Care Studies, Pacific Research Institute and former director of health and pharmaceutical policy research at Canada’s Fraser Institute; Ruth Lopert, Harkness fellow in health care policy, George Washington University and principal advisor, Pharmaceutical Policy Taskforce, Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, Canberra, Australia; and Peter J. Pitts, co-founder and president, Center for Medicines in the Public Interest, and former FDA associate commissioner for external relations.

“The group of experts we have assembled are ideally suited to evaluate the advantages and limitations of applying cost-effectiveness analysis to U.S. healthcare coverage decisions,” Sally C. Pipes, president and CEO, Pacific Research Institute, said. “Government and healthcare leaders must balance the desire for patients to have access to the best American medicine has to offer with the need to control healthcare costs in a manner that rewards innovation and investment.”

About Evidence, Economics and Politics

“Evidence, Economics, and Politics: Australia’s Experiment in Evidence-Based Medicine”, co-sponsored by CHI and PRI, will be in session Friday, December 15, 8:00 to 10:30 a.m. (pacific time) at the St. Regis Hotel, 125 3rd Street, San Francisco, Calif. A taped video broadcast of the event is available at http://www.innovation.org/index.cfm/NewsCenter/Briefings/ Cost-Effectiveness_Analysis_Conference (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

About CHI

The California Healthcare Institute (CHI) represents more than 250 leading biotechnology, medical device, diagnostics, and pharmaceutical companies, and public and private academic biomedical research organizations. CHI’s mission is to advance responsible public policies that foster medical innovation and promote scientific discovery. CHI’s web site is http://www.chi.org.

About PRI

For 27 years, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) has championed freedom, opportunity, and individual responsibility through free-market policy solutions. PRI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. PRI’s web site is www.pacificresearch.org