Consulting Reports

Many of the studies OHE Consulting performs are proprietary and the results are not released publicly. Studies of interest to a wide audience, however, may be made available, in whole or in part, with the client’s permission. They may be published by OHE alone, jointly with the client, or externally in scholarly publications.

The following examples of recent OHE Consulting projects are limited to those with publicly available materials that may be downloaded from this website.

Measurement of Medicines Expenditure in the Context of the 2014-18 PPRS

Ferraro, J., O'Neill, P. and Towse, A.

Consulting Report
August 2018

This OHE Consulting Report reviews “Measurement of Medicines Expenditure in the Context of the 2014-18 PPRS.” The project was funded by the ABPI.

For the year 2015/16, the Treasury reported growth in Government funded healthcare expenditure in the UK of 4.0% whilst NHS Digital reported medicines expenditure growth for the English National Health Service (NHS) for the same period at 8.0%. However, NHS Digital reported much reduced medicines expenditure growth for England of 3.5% for 2016/17, suggesting a complex underlying picture. NHS Digital growth rates are at list price as NHS Digital is not able to take account of rates of discount obtained by the NHS, which our analysis suggests are increasing, or of the rebate payments for branded drugs under the 2014-18 Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS).

It is important to stress that we are analysing data to understand trends since 2014. This work does not allow us to make any predictions about future trends.

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The Impact of New Medicines in the NHS: 70 Years of Innovation

Sampson, C., O'Neill, P. and Lorgelly, P.

Consulting Report
August 2018

In 2018, the NHS turns 70. This OHE Consulting Report demonstrates the contribution and impact of medicines to the health economy in the UK throughout the history of the NHS. Through interviews with experts we identified a shortlist of the most important medicines to have been brought to market, and from a review of the literature and evidence base we attempt to quantify the benefits of these key medicines in terms of health and economic outcomes.

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Quality of Life in Long-term Cancer Survivors: Implications for Future Health Technology Assessments in Oncology

Cubi-Molla, P., Mott, D., Shah, K., Herdman, M., Summers, Y. and Devlin, N.

Consulting Report
June 2018

Cancer survival rates have improved dramatically in recent decades due in part to pharmaceutical advances, with a growing range of increasingly effective and targeted medicines being developed, such as immunotherapies. In the economic modelling of such treatments, the question arises of which utilities should be assigned to patients who show a long-term, durable response.

In recent critiques of economic models in this area by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the idea that long-term cancer survivors (LTCS) who have received such treatments could report quality of life (QoL) scores which are similar to, or higher than, those of equivalent general population samples has not been viewed as credible. This literature review examines whether there is evidence to support the assumption that the QoL of LTCS can be similar to that of age/sex-matched population samples.

This study was funded by Roche Products Ltd.

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A Critique of the Paper “The Estimated Costs of Production and Potential Prices for the World Health Organization Essential Medicines List”

Towse, A., Hernandez-Villafuerte, K. and Shaw, B.
Consulting Report
May 2018

This OHE Consulting Report reviews “Estimated costs of production and potential prices of medicines for the World Health Organization Essential Medicines List” (Hill et al., 2018) in which the authors argue for “greater transparency in drug pricing” and propose generating estimates of the cost of manufacturing essential medicines to inform negotiations on drug pricing.

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The Debate on Indication-Based Pricing in the U.S. and Five Major European Countries

Towse, A., Cole, A., and Zamora, B.
Consulting Report
May 2018

The notion that the price of a medicine should be linked in some way to value it generates for patients and the health system is generally accepted. Yet, how can this be achieved, when increasingly medicines are being developed that derive patient benefit across many different indications? Indication-based pricing (IBP) has been proposed as a way to tackle this issue, permitting price to vary according to indication and – critically – according to value.

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