Insights

Paying for Prevention: Reflections on the 2026 OHE Annual Lecture

30 October 2026

At the 2026 Office of Health Economics (OHE) Annual Lecture, Dr Eduardo Banzon of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) argued that prevention will only attract sustained investment if its case is framed around wider economic returns. He identified six barriers that favour curative care over prevention and proposed three financing routes to overcome them: health taxes, strategic purchasing and blended finance. All three depend on collaboration and co-financing across government, multilateral organisations and industry.

Counter-productive: the impact of ignoring carer productivity

28 October 2026

Caring for a loved one often carries a quiet cost to an individual’s career and wellbeing. Yet this cost is rarely considered when assessing which treatments represent good value.

Beyond opportunity cost: what are health systems for? The UK–US pharmaceutical agreement and the limits of QALY maximisation

23 October 2026

The UK–US deal raises medicines spending and the NICE threshold in return for US tariff relief. Critics focus on opportunity-cost, missing the point that health maximisation isn’t the only objective of broader government policy.

Global equity in the shadow of US pricing reform: Access by bargaining power? | Insights from a WHS side event

22 October 2026

At this year’s World Health Summit, OHE brought together an expert panel to discuss the impact of MFN on the global healthcare landscape and strategies to protect sustainable innovation.

Around the World in HTAs: Australia – The lucky country’s waiting game

5 October 2026

Australia’s HTA system was one of the world’s first, but outdated methods mean patients now wait an average of 466 days for subsidised access to new medicines. We look at the 2024 HTA Review and whether its reforms can close the gap.

Around the World in HTAs: Zimbabwe – Seizing a window of opportunity

24 September 2026

Zimbabwe has an opportunity to embed health technology assessment (HTA) into its health system as it works towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030. Currently, the country provides access to just 55% of the benchmarked essential health services.

Five unanswered questions from the UK’s Renewed Women’s Health Strategy

16 September 2026

The UK’s Renewed Women’s Health Strategy sets out an ambitious plan. But can the NHS deliver it?

Compared to what? How the choice of comparator affects new medicines

14 September 2026

Comparator choice shapes health technology assessment: it sets the benchmark a new medicine is assessed against, driving both patient access and where firms invest in R&D. We consider five theoretical comparator examples and, for each, assess the implications of comparator selection on access, launch decisions and innovation incentives for new medicines.

Why President Trump’s generic drug tariffs are unlikely to fix America’s supply problem

13 August 2026

America’s dependence on foreign generic manufacturing is a real national security and supply concern. The vast majority of drug shortages in the U.S. are generics and shortages have increasingly burdened pharmacies across the country and disrupted care for the patients who rely on them, particularly those with chronic pain and cancer.

But President Trump’s most recent policy is unlikely to fix that problem. It’s far more likely to make American medicine cabinets less reliable, not more.