The Office of Health Economics (www.ohe.org) wishes to recruit a number of well-qualified, highly motivated and energetic junior economists, with particular strengths in health economics, including the economics of health technology assessment, health care systems and/or the life sciences industry.
Adrian Towse presented evidence that transparency of process reduced corruption and improved competition. Evidence was, however, against price transparency for on-patent medicines. It will reduce access in low income countries. In generic markets, price transparency could improve efficiency, although it risks collusion by suppliers. There is therefore a case for buyers sharing, but not publishing, price data for off-patent medicines.
OHE has published a white paper discussing the relative merits and shortfalls of current approaches to defining, estimating, and applying cost-effectiveness thresholds in HTA.
This will be accompanied by a (forthcoming) research paper exploring bargaining in threshold setting
People living in Middle and Low Income Countries (MLICs) do not get access to innovative treatments and new treatments meeting MLIC requirements do not come to market. These issues should be addressed through a demand-side approach— better payer policy in MLICs, supported by international actors, to speed development and dissemination. An Innovation Uptake Institute (IUI) can serve as an honest broker between country payers and suppliers.
TB kills 1.6m people annually - the world’s deadliest infectious disease. The Market-Driven, Value-Based Advance Commitment (MVAC), creates and guarantees a market for better TB treatment. The final “blueprint” has four pillars: HTA to inform countries’ value-based purchase commitments; commitment guarantees underwritten by a development bank; industrial policy alignment; and a governance structure credible to MIC payers and industry.
