OHE Publications

In this Seminar Briefing, Ulf Persson recounts Sweden’s experience with its approach to value based pricing (VBP). The model is a flexible approach that gives weight to cost-offsets outside the health sector and emphasises both encouraging innovation and enhancing access through such options as coverage with evidence development. He offers a series of examples to demonstrate how Sweden has addressed issues that any VBP system will face, including access to orphan drugs.

Since 1996, in its yearly PPRS Report to Parliament, the Department of Health in England has published international price comparisons of branded medicines used in the primary care setting. OHE Consulting uses the same methodology in this report to update comparisons through 2011.

This report provides a clear explanation of the nature of innovation in medicines.  A fully revised and expanded version of the 2005 edition, it updates the literature review of the economics of innovation, traces important innovation that has occurred since 2005, adds new case studies and updates the discussion of competition in pharmaceutical R&D.

In April 2006, payment thresholds were raised for GPs who participate in Scotland’s Ouality and Outcomes Framework.  GPs were required to meet new, higher thresholds on some indicators to receive maximum levels of payment.  In this paper, OHE’s Yan Feng and her colleagues examine whether this change in fact improved GP performance and whether the impact differed across GPs. Specifically, they examine whether low-, mid- and high-performing GPs changed behaviour and, if so, to what extent.