TRANSFERABILITY OF ECONOMIC EVALUATIONS ACROSS JURISDICTIONS

Goal
The mission of this Task Force is to develop good research practices on the transferability of economic data in health technology assessment.

Task Force Chair
Michael Drummond PhD, ISPOR 2006-2007 President and Professor of Health Economics, Centre for Health Economics, University of York, York, UK

Leadership Group
Marco Barbieri MSc, Research Associate, i3 Innovus, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK
John Cook PhD, Director, Merck & Co. Inc., North Wales, PA, USA
Henry Glick PhD, Health Economist, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Joanna Lis PhD, MSc, Health Economics Manager, Sanofi-Aventis Group Poland, Warsaw, Poland
Farzana Malik PhD, Mphil, BA, Global Pricing & Health Economics Manager, Merck Serono International SA, Geneva, Switzerland
Shelby Reed PhD, RPh, Assistant Research Professor, Duke Clinical Research Institute, Durham, NC, USA
Frans Rutten PhD, MSc, Professor of Health Economics & Medical Technology Assessment, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Mark Sculpher PhD, Professor of Health Economics, Centre for Health Economics, University of York, York, UK
Hans Severens PhD, Professor of MTA, University Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Background
Several factors, varying from location to location, are thought to limit the transferability (generalizability) of economic (i.e. resource, cost and utility) data. These include differences in relative prices, practice patterns, availability of health care resources and community values of health states.

A recent review of economic evaluations conducted in Western Europe (Barbieri et al. Value in Health 2005; 8(1): 10-23) showed that, whilst there were differences in cost-effectiveness results across countries, the importance of these differences for decision-making was far from clear.

The existing guidelines for economic evaluation (both formal and voluntary) take differing positions on the relevance and/or admissibility of data from outside the country of interest. If the guidelines for accepting data are too flexible, decisions could be based on misleading estimates of cost-effectiveness. On the other hand, if the guidelines are too restrictive this could lead to unnecessary duplication of research.

Therefore, the main questions are:

• Which elements of economic data vary most from setting to setting?
• Given the known variability, what would be reasonable guidelines for accepting (or not accepting) data from outside the country of interest?

This topic fits within the general theme of the use of pharmacoeconomic-health economic information by decision-makers. In the recent Task Force report on this topic, the relevance (or lack of relevance) of data to local circumstances was one of the issues most frequently raised by decision-makers.

Draft Final Report
The Task Force presented their final draft report entitled "Transferability of Economic Evaluations Across Jurisdictions" including responses to member comments at ISPOR's 13th Annual International Meeting in Toronto. This session focused on economic data transferability issues including defining key variable economic data, guidelines for acceptance of data from outside a country while considering existing national guidelines, and directions for future research. The task force's presentation entitled "Good Practices on Economic Data Transferability: Relaxing the Border Controls on Pharmacoeconomic Studies" can be viewed at http://www.ispor.org/meetings/toronto0508/ReleasedPresentations.asp

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