Lunchtime Seminar: Willingness-to-Pay

On 16 July, OHE will present a Lunchtime Seminar by Prof Peter Zweifel, who will discuss his recent research on patients’ willingness to pay for pharmaceuticals. Space is limited at this seminar.

Willingness-to-Pay for a New Pharmaceutical: Is it Worth the Money?  Whose  Money?

During this OHE Lunchtime Seminar, Prof Peter Zweifel, University of Zurich, will discuss his recent research on patients' willingness to pay.

True cost-benefit evidence for deciding whether a new pharmaceutical should be included in a benefit list is scarce because only surrogates of benefit usually are  measured. From an economic point of view, the willingness-to-pay (WTP) of potential and actual patients constitutes the preferred measure. At this seminar Peter Zweifel will discuss the findings from a discrete-choice experiment conducted in Germany to elicit the WTP for modern insulin therapy using a long-acting insulin analogue rather than conventional insulin. WTP values were found to exceed the extra treatment cost, justifying inclusion of the new pharmaceutical in the benefit list from a cost-benefit point of view. More generally, choice experiments such as this could pave the way for actually applying the cost-benefit standard to health care.

Peter Zweifel is Professor of Economics at the University of Zurich, where he teaches and researches in the areas of health economics and insurance economics. A member of the OHE Editorial Board, Prof Zweifel has published a dozen books, notably Health Economics (2nd. ed. 2009, with Friedrich Breyer and Mathias Kifmann) and many journal articles.

The seminar will be held 12.00-2.00 PM, Friday, 16 July, at the OHE, 12 Whitehall, London.  Space is limited at this seminar.  To reserve your seat, please contact us.