ISPOR 8th Annual European Congress: Ciao, Firenze!

The ISPOR 8th Annual European Congress was held on 6-8 November 2005 at Il Palazzo Degli Affari, Florence, Italy. This year, over 1,300 attended the Congress, ISPOR’s biggest Congresses to date! Patrizia Berto MBA, President of PBE Consulting in Verona, Italy, and Lorenzo G. Mantovani MSc, DSc, Director of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Milan in Milan, Italy were the Congress Co-chairs and organized a top-rate program for congress attendees to compliment ISPOR’s anniversary celebrations.

The Plenary Sessions were well attended. The first Plenary Session examined cost-utility measures. Paul Kind, Centre for Health Economics, University of York, York, UK, stated that the although the QALY has wide acceptance, social decision-making would be better served by using a single standard set of preference weights not conditional on any particular valuation methodology. Claude Le Pen PhD, Aremis Consultants, Neuilly Sur Seine, France, stated that although utilities are the appropriate way to value health states, there are ambiguous measures of utility. Costutility analysis imposes a specific choice criterion which is not necessarily consistent with society values. The question is who should define the “society preferences?”

The third plenary topic was on drug safety. Achille Caputi MD, Istituto Farmacologia, School of Medicine, Università di Messina, Policlinico Universitario, Messina, Italy, stressed the problem of safety and what we should learn from the recent drug market withdrawals. He stated that 51% of approved drugs have serious adverse effects not detected prior their approval, and merely discovering adverse effects is not by itself sufficient to protect the public. Bruno Stricker PhD, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, expressed that there is too much emphasis on reporting alone and too many complicated administrative procedures. He advised the best way to deal with drug safety is to implement an extensive registration procedure for marketed drugs (Phase I-III), and to apply extensive pharmacovigilance (Phase IV).

Second Plenary Speakers (l) Lorenzo G Mantovani MSc, DSc, Director, Center of Pharmacoeconomics, School of Pharmacy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy; and Giampiero Mazzaglia MD, PhD, MSc, Health College of General Practitioners, Verona, Italy “The session identified many of the challenge in measuring, valuing and comparing health outcomes, issues that we need to address not only in theory, but in our day to day practice of outcomes research,” said John F.P. Bridges, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.

“I found the first plenary session on measuring patient and societal values particularly thought-provoking,” said F. Reed Johnson, PhD, Senior Fellow and Principal Economist, RTI Health Solutions, Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA. “Paul Kind, Mandy Ryan, and Claude Le Pen are highly regarded researchers who are willing to take on difficult, and sometimes controversial, meaasurement problems. All three challenged the conventional wisdom on QALY and HRQoL measurement from quite different perspectives. ISPOR sessions such as this one provide the synthesis of institutional context and intellectual rigor that makes ISPOR such an influential force in health economics.”

First Plenary Session: Patient Values and Societal Values: How to Measure and Compare Outcomes and What Considerations for the Different Audiences

Other well-attended sessions were the ISPOR Workshops. The most popular workshops were “Methods For Presenting Probabilistic Sensitivity Analyses For Effective Communication Of Findings,” during which techniques for effectively communicating results of probabilistic sensitivity analyses (PSA) in pharmacoeconomic models were presented; “Discrete Choice Experiments In Health Policy And Decision Making,” during which discrete choice experiments (DCE) as a technique for evaluating health care technologies from a patient’s perspective, and to understand the rationale and implications of using this method in health care decisionmaking processes were presented; and “What Really Are Patient-Reported Outcomes?” which provided a conceptual foundation of characteristics and types of patient-reported outcomes (PROs).

The ISPOR Issues Panels were well attended, with particular emphasis on the topic of health technology assessment issues. The Issues Panel, “‘Fourth Hurdle’ Systems: How Well Are They Using HTA In Decision- Making?’ with Moderator Martin Buxton, Professor, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK, and panelists: Chris Henshall PhD, Health Technology Assessment International, University of York, York, UK; Clare McGrath BS, Director, Team Leader, Pfizer Ltd, Tadworth, Surrey, UK; and John Hutton BSc, BPhil, Senior Research Leader, United BioSource Corporation, London, UK, examined the ways of describing and comparing the operation in theory and in practice of so-called ‘fourth hurdle’ and related systems concerned with determining the availability and reimbursement of pharmaceuticals and other technologies in different countries. Of the ISPOR Forums, the ISPOR Budget Impact Task Force Forum, moderated by Josephine Mauskopf PhD, VP, Health Economics, RTI Health Solutions, RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA, had presented an update on the progress of the Task Force in developing a coherent set of methodological guidelines for those developing or reviewing budget impact analyses.

Congress attendees also attended their choice of 4 Podium Sessions–with 64 quality presentations –3 Poster Sessions, with over 700 poster presentations, over 30 Workshops, and 9 Issues Panel Sessions, throughout the week, as well as having the opportunity to attend the pre-congress Short Courses prior in the week.

And, as a break from scientific sessions for Congress attendees, the ISPOR 10th Anniversary Celebrations continued in Florence. Attendees experienced a ‘taste’ of Italy with a night at the Vincigliata Castle in Feisole, Italy. Attendees enjoyed an evening of fine Italian wine tasting, a dinner buffet of authentic Italian cuisine, and music at the beautiful and historical Vincigliata Castle, while overlooking the city of Florence from one of the most beautiful observation decks.

“It was heartening and satisfying to see in Florence-a wonderful venue and city!-both the high level of attendance and the intensity of member involvement in the important issues of our field,” said Jonathan Tierce. “The organizers and the many members who assisted in this event have my deepest thanks for an outstanding meeting!” Plenary Speaker Paul Kind, Principal Investigator, Centre for Health Economics, University of York, York, UK

ISPOR 8th European Congress Program Committee Co- Chairs Lorenzo G Mantovani MSc, DSc, Director, Center of Pharmacoeconomics, School of Pharmacy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy; Patrizia Berto PharmD, MBA, President, PBE Consulting, Verona, Italy; and Peter Neumann ScD, ISPOR 2005-2006 President and Associate Professor of Policy and Decision Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA “This congress represents a new mile stone in the development of ISPOR,” says Jonothan C. Tierce CPhil, ValueMedics Research, LLC, Falls Church, VA, USA. “The plenary sessions set the tone for a rigorous, self-critical examination of the frontiers of our discipline.”

ISPOR’s next International Meeting will be in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 20-24, 2006, where it all began. We hope to see you there and thanks for being part of ISPOR inFlorence, Italy, the last 10 years, and for many more years to come!

  Issues Index | 2005 Issues Index