NPC @ ISPOR 23rd Annual International Meeting

  • May 19, 9:00am - May 23 5:00pm, 2018
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Join NPC at the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) 23rd Annual International Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 19-23. NPC Chief Science Officer and Executive Vice President Robert W. Dubois, MD, PhD; Vice President of Comparative Effectiveness Research Jennifer S. Graff, PharmD; Vice President of Health Services Research Kimberly Westrich, MA; Vice President of Research Michael Ciarametaro, MBA; and University of Southern California Schaeffer-NPC Postdoctoral Health Policy Fellow Ilene Hollin, PhD, MPH, will share their research at panels and poster sessions throughout the event.

Make sure to stop by NPC's exhibition table (Booth 426) to learn more about our latest research and activities. 

Sessions

Monday, May 21

Symposium: 21st Century Cures Act and the Future of Real-world Evidence
12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m., Room 309 (Level 300)

The 21st Century Cures Act calls for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop and implement a program to evaluate the potential use of real-world evidence (RWE) by year’s end, with draft guidance due three years later. A panel of experts who have been involved in the process will share insights on future trends for RWE generation and FDA considerations.

Featuring:

  • David Thompson, PhD, Senior Vice President, Real World & Late Phase, Syneos Health (Moderator)
  • Jennifer S. Graff, PharmD, Vice President of Comparative Effectiveness Research, National Pharmaceutical Council
  • Cathy W Critchlow, PhD, Vice President, Center for Observational Research, Amgen Inc
  • David Martin, MPH, Captain, U.S. Public Health Service; Associate Director for Real World Evidence Analytics, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Office of Medical Policy, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research

Tuesday, May 22

Issue Panel: “Making Medicines Affordable: A National Imperative" – Reflections on the National Academies Report (Invited Issue Panel)
2:15 p.m.-3:15 p.m., Ballroom I (Level 400)

To approach the proper balance between affordabil­ity and future availability of medicines in the inter­est of public health, Making Medicines Affordable offers a set of eight specific recommendations, with interlinked imple­mentation actions in the biopharmaceutical sectors, regarding: federal government negotiation of prices, access to off-patent drugs, consumer information, insurance benefit designs, the Orphan Drug Act, and reimbursement incentives. What are the key rationales behind these recommendations? Can we be confident – and how could we evaluate – whether implementing them would achieve a desirable balance between affordability and innovation?

Featuring:

  • Guru Madhavan, PhD, MBA, Senior Program Officer, Health and Medicine, National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (Moderator)
  • Norman Augustine, MS, Retired, Lockheed Martin Corporation
  • Charles E. Phelps, PhD, MBA, University Professor & Provost Emeritus, Office of the Provost, University of Rochester
  • Stacie B. Dusetzina, PhD, Associate Professor, Health Policy, Ingram Associate Professor of Cancer Research, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
  • Robert W. Dubois, MD, PhD, Chief Science Officer & Executive Vice President, National Pharmaceutical Council

Poster Presentation: Factors Predicting Restrictions on US Commercial Payer Coverage of Specialty Drugs
8:30 a.m.-2 p.m., Level 100

Poster by:

  • David D. Kim, PhD, MS, Assistant Professor at the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health (CEVR) at the Tufts Medical Center Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies
  • Elle F. Pope, Research Associate at the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health (CEVR) at the Tufts Medical Center Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies
  • Colby L. Wilkinson, Graduate Student, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • Jennifer S. Graff, PharmD, Vice President of Comparative Effectiveness Research, National Pharmaceutical Council
  • Peter J. Neumann, ScD, Director and Professor of Medicine at the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health (CEVR) at the Tufts Medical Center Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies
  • James D. Chambers, PhD, MPharm, MSc, Project Director and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health (CEVR) at the Tufts Medical Center Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies

Poster Presentation: Accessing Medications in the United States: A Systemic Review of the Challenges and Barriers
8:30 a.m.-2 p.m., Level 100

Poster by:

  • Lee Holland, PharmD/MPH candidate, Eastern Tennessee State University
  • Nicolette Mehas, PharmD, 2017-2018 Executive Fellow, Pharmacy Quality Alliance
  • Matthew Pickering, PharmD, RPh, Director, Research & Quality Strategies, Pharmacy Quality Alliance
  • Kimberly Westrich, MA, Vice President of Health Services Research, National Pharmaceutical Council

Poster Presentation: How Are We Measuring Access to Healthcare in the US? — An Environmental Scan of Quality Measures
8:30 a.m.-2 p.m., Level 100

Poster by:

  • Nicolette Mehas, PharmD, 2017-2018 Executive Fellow, Pharmacy Quality Alliance
  • Mel Nelson, PharmD, CPHQ, Associate Director, Research & Academic Affairs, Pharmacy Quality Alliance
  • Arlin Ashemore, PharmD candidate, Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy
  • Kimberly Westrich, MA, Vice President of Health Services Research, National Pharmaceutical Council

Poster Presentation: Challenges to Reducing Low-value Care: Lessons Learned and Future Directions
8:30 a.m.-2 p.m., Level 100

This poster is based on forthcoming research sponsored by the National Pharmaceutical Council as part of our ongoing health spending research initiative.

Poster by:

  • Corinna Sorenson, Assistant Professor in Population Health Sciences, Duke School of Medicine, Duke University
  • Lauren Schauer, Research Assistant, Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, Duke University
  • Mark McClellan, Robert J. Margolis Professor of Business, Medicine, and Policy; Director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, Duke University

Wednesday, May 23

Issue Panel: Value Assessment Frameworks in an Era of Personalized Medicine: Shared Objectives or Irreconcilable Differences?
8:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m., Ballroom II (Level 400)

By identifying which medical treatments and procedures will work best for each patient, personalized medicine improves efficiency at both the individual and health system levels. In an environment where the US has paid increasing attention to health care costs, VAFs aim to systematically quantify which treatments provide the most benefit for patients and the health system at a reasonable cost. Indeed, the two share many objectives related to improving health outcomes. Nevertheless, the current methodologies of VAFs may not sufficiently capture the value of personalized medicine, focusing instead on population health, thereby overlooking efficiencies in patient-level health care and potentially under-valuing innovative therapies. This panel aims to expose and debate the challenges of valuing personalized medicines in the current VAF environment and identify areas of consensus on which newer methodologies can be built.

Featuring:

  • Kristen Migliaccio-Walle, BS, Director, Global Health Economics & Outcomes Research, Xcenda (Moderator)
  • Donna Cryer, JD, President and CEO, Global Liver Institute
  • Daniel A. Ollendorf, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Institute for Clinical and Economic Review
  • Robert W. Dubois, MD, PhD, Chief Science Officer, National Pharmaceutical Council

Issue Panel: When Research Questions Collide: How Much is the United States Actually Spending on Drugs?
8:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m., Ballroom I (Level 400)

Many policy discussions on health care spending are focusing on controlling the share of health care spending allocated to prescription drugs. However, estimates of this share stem from very different research questions and can vary considerably from each other. Informed policy discussions require a mutual understanding of the data and an estimate that is relevant to both the research and policy questions at hand. This panel will debate how the share of health care spending attributable to drugs should be measured and whether there is a “right” number for policy discussions. This panel is based on forthcoming research from the National Pharmaceutical Council and the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science. 

Featuring: 

  • Michael Kleinrock, MA, Research Director, IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science (Moderator)
  • Sean Keehan, MA, Economist, Office of the Actuary, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
  • Cynthia Cox, MPH, Director, Program for the Study of Health Reform and Private Insurance, Kaiser Family Foundation
  • Sara Sadownik, MSc, Deputy Director, Research and Cost Trends, Massachusetts Health Policy Commission

Issue Panel: The Patient Perspective and Value Assessment: Easy to Identify the Need, Hard to Agree on the Solution
1:45 p.m.-2:45 p.m., Ballroom I (Level 400)

Value assessment frameworks are becoming a tool increasingly used by decision-makers to evaluate the use of healthcare services. It is widely accepted that value assessment, an already complex pursuit, is complicated further by the inclusion of the patient perspective. Many argue that for value assessment tools to achieve maximum utility they should incorporate the patient point-of-view. Few agree, however, on the best way to achieve this goal. The list of challenges in doing so are long and include reconciling individual preferences and needs with population-level decision-making, accounting for long-term benefits on a short-term time horizon, and acknowledging indirect benefits in a healthcare system perspective that is traditionally aligned to consider more tangible clinical benefits. Lack of consensus about the appropriate approach puts us at risk for ignoring patient perspectives altogether. Continual debate as well as trial and error are necessary to ensure forward movement. This panel, with participation from the audience, will attempt to answer the question about what aspects of the patient perspective should be included in value assessment frameworks and how to best incorporate them.

Featuring:

  • Michael Ciarametaro, MBA, Vice President, National Pharmaceutical Council (Moderator)
  • Ilene L. Hollin, PhD, MPH, University of Southern California Schaeffer-NPC Postdoctoral Health Policy Fellow
  • David Wamble, MS, MBA, Director, Health Economicis, RTI Health Solutions
  • Josh Seidman, PhD, MHS, Senior Vice President, Avalere