Articles
Forging a Path Toward a More Stable and Patient-Centric Health System in 2021 (1/6, National Pharmaceutical Council: E.V.I.dently Today) comments “In his commentary for Chain Drug Review, NPC Interim President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Dubois, MD, PhD, explores the steps we can take to improve our current health care system in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. To do this successfully, Dr. Dubois says that we need to focus on three key elements: appropriately managing health care spending, addressing patients' concerns about costs and access to treatments, and providing incentives for sustained innovation.” Full
Pharmacy Outlook: Robert Dubois, NPC (1/8, Robert Dubois, Chain Drug Review) comments “...The second requirement needed to address the challenges of 2021 will be making sure that the patient is front and center in any systemic changes that are considered. There will almost certainly be more of a focus on health technology assessments, making it critical that we understand what is measured when we measure ‘value’ — what's valuable to an insurance company may not match what's valuable to the patient. NPC has already published guiding practices on the use of value assessment, which can offer an excellent road map to whether a given approach measures what is truly important, especially for patients.” Full
What's In Your RWE Evaluation Toolbox? (1/6, National Pharmaceutical Council: E.V.I.dently Today) comments “...‘Although RWE has been growing, citations of these studies in formulary and coverage decisions remain infrequent,’ said Jennifer Graff, PharmD, vice president of policy research at the National Pharmaceutical Council, and a co-author of the article along with authors from the University of Washington. ‘In a survey of health plan pharmacy and medical directors, most believe RWE can help make more informed decisions, but few feel adequately prepared to evaluate or use RWE. Over 50% of surveyed health plan pharmacy and medical directors noted a pivotal barrier to RWE use was their personal or their organization's lack of experience interpreting RWE studies,’ she said.” Full
EMA Will Use Panalgo Software for Real-World Data Analytics (1/8, Phil Taylor, PharmaPhorum) reports “...Panalgo has won a contract to supply the European Medicines Agency with its IHD data analytics platform, pledging to streamline its public health efforts. IHD – or Instant Health Data – will be used by the EMA to carry out data analyses and examine medicinal product utilisation, answer questions about safety and efficacy, and understand how treatments perform in real-world settings, said the Boston, US-based company.” Full
Press Releases
C-Path PRO Consortium Measure Used to Support an FDA-Approved Label Claim (1/7, Critical Path Institute Press Release) “...‘The multi-stakeholder collaboration within the Critical Path Institute's PRO Consortium, inclusive of sponsors, patients, measurement experts and FDA has been critical in being able to incorporate the patient's voice into a development program and product labeling. This is a huge win for patients to understand the impact of treatment on symptoms that matter to them and inform their treatment decision-making for this burdensome condition,’ stated Robyn T. Carson, MPH, Vice President, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, at AbbVie and co-chair of the PRO Consortium's IBS Working Group.” Full
ICER Publishes Final Evidence Report and Policy Recommendations for Supervised Injection Facilities (1/8, ICER Press Release) “The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review today released a Final Evidence Report and Report-at-a-Glance assessing the comparative clinical effectiveness and value of supervised injection facilities, as a means to reduce harm among people who inject drugs. This assessment is another facet of ICER’s work to deliver independent evaluations of the clinical evidence related to a wide-range of potential interventions addressing the opioid crisis, including abuse-deterrent opioid formulations, medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder, non-drug interventions for chronic lower back pain, and digital health therapeutics for OUD.” Full
NICE Is Gearing up for the Evaluation of Further Digital Health Technologies as Pilot Project Produces First Result (1/8, NICE Press Release) “...The guidance is published and it is official. NICE has successfully completed the first assessment using the digital health technologies guidance development pilot project. The Zio XT service, which is used for detecting abnormal heart rhythms, is recommended as an option while further data is collected to address evidence gaps about the benefit for patients and the NHS.” Full
Journals
Online Tools to Synthesize Real-World Evidence of Comparative Effectiveness Research to Enhance Formulary Decision Making Shuxian Chen , MA, Jennifer Graff , PharmD, Sophia Yun , PharmD, Brennan Beal , PharmD, Jamie T Ta , PharmD, MS, Aasthaa Bansal , PhD, Joshua J Carlson , MPH, PhD, David L Veenstra , PharmD, PhD, Anirban Basu , PhD, Beth Devine , PhD, PharmD, MBA January 2021, Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy JMCP