As promised, I won’t start with stating the obvious once again. How we have all experienced first-hand the broad societal impact of the pandemic. How badly we needed some perspective to keep going while missing out on school, work, sports, social activities, while seeing our family either too much or too little. You all know that. You’ve been there. Or still are.
Likewise, there’s no need for me to explain that, thanks to highly effective vaccines, the lucky few of us living in countries with high vaccination rates can now start enjoying the broader value of vaccination. Whether that comes to you in the form of grabbing a bite and a drink with friends, or in finally racing that marathon you trained for during lockdown: one way or another, we’re figuring out how to live with COVID-19 rather than fear dying from it as much.
For all that has been written on the broader value of vaccines over the last 18 months or so, this idea is not at all new. Health economists have been calling for a broader perspective to assess the value of vaccines long before. Similar calls have been made for assessing the value of new antibiotics, acknowledging that a too narrow perspective ignores much of their value. At OHE we have contributed our parts, investigating incentives for new drugs and vaccines tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR), estimating vaccines return on investment from a UK governmental perspective, and showing that if broader value elements are unaccounted for in cost-effectiveness analyses, vaccines are very likely to be undervalued. No need to repeat all that.
Therefore, my top read of the month is the paper by Shafrin et al., 2021 that shines a light on how important broader value elements are to other interventions than vaccines or antibiotics. The short answer: broader value elements matter more for rare diseases. So now we have evidence of at least three types of interventions that accrue an important part of their value via broader value elements. Some might say, three is a crowd.
But why does this matter, for any intervention? First, if prices are linked to value, payers may be underpaying for certain treatments when value is too narrowly defined. If such treatments are undervalued, incentives for innovation in these areas will be reduced. Second, government research funding may not be directed to treatment areas with the highest disease burden.
As the importance of broader value elements becomes increasingly clear for various interventions, the question of how to appropriately deal with these as part of HTA becomes more pressing. Our latest journal publication, focused on vaccines, provides some suggestions to improve the evidence, ability, and willingness of all stakeholders involved to consider broader value elements. To truly move the needle however, it is time to start acting.
Please check our upcoming Events and Masterclass that will touch on this topic. As co-chair of Virtual ISPOR Europe 2021, I’m taking this chance to alert you to the closing plenary session titled: Broader Value Assessments for Special Populations and Technologies: Are We Closing a Gap or Widening a Divide? World-leading experts and decision makers will be bringing their perspective. Please join and share yours.
For my part: perspective means everything, and it includes everyone. See you soon!
