Published Jun 30, 2014

Wallingford, CT, USA & Songkhla, Thailand - Recently, governments in the Asian region have tried their best to provide affordable health care in spite of economic dynamics. With the increasing pressure of constrained resources and more innovative medicines coming to the region, applications of pharmacoeconomics (PE) as a tool of health technology assessment (HTA) to assist health policy decision making has evolved dramatically in the past 10 years. In reviewing the evolution of PE over the last decade, and looking forward to the future trends, the researchers evaluated five key areas: (1) the application of PE as an assessment tool in policy decision making can be multidimensional, including public policy and politics; (2) involving all stakeholders is critical for decision-making; (3) keeping patients in mind is also important for evaluating and adopting innovative technology; (4) when doing PE evaluations, focus should be long term, in balancing clinical and economic benefits; and (5) using PE as a tool of HTA, local considerations would be key for successful adaptation to new technologies. The authors concluded that while technology can be exchanged among countries, proper applications of PE to assist decision making on maximizing the value of health resources should eventually happen at the country level. “With the review of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research development in Asia in the past 10 years, we expect these researches will become more active in supporting health care policy decision making in the next decade to come.” said Professor Surachat Ngorsuraches, PhD, RPh, the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Prince of Songkla University in Thailand.

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