The use of
pharmacoeconomic tools has grown dramatically in the past decade as provision of healthcare throughout the industrialised world has required increased cost
consciousness. However,
pharmacoeconomic analysis has not yet been fully exploited as a conceptual underpinning for public or private health
policy decisions.
Pharmacoeconomics is likely to become an increasingly important basis for health
policy decisions as a number of significant dynamics evolve in the marketplace, including: (i) consumers acting on their growing access to information and becoming more actively involved in treatment decisions; (ii) payers, providers and patients deepening their interaction and overcoming their traditional (narrow) focus on either costs or benefits alone; and (iii) manufacturers being challenged by other healthcare constituencies as sponsors of cost-based outcomes studies.
