ISSUE: Leading experts and key stakeholders in the health economics and outcomes research community in European countries and North America have discussed value assessment frameworks beyond QALY metric. However, they were rarely considered or discussed among countries in Asia. Panelists will discuss their views on various value assessment frameworks and how these frameworks fit with the healthcare decision context in Asian countries from academic, payer, and industry perspectives.

OVERVIEW

: Despite the wide use of cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) with quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) for assessing value of drugs, its use remains controversial. Since the QALY metric is a single-dimensional and generic health measure, the value assessments using CEA with QALYs therefore fails to capture other important elements of value. In addition, the QALY generally neither addresses the heterogeneity of patient preferences nor engages patients, who are increasingly taking on an active role in healthcare systems across the globe. Recently, new non-QALY based value assessments have been proposed in European countries and the US. This issue panel will first provide a broad overview of the value assessment frameworks beyond QALY metric. The panelists will comment on strengths, weaknesses, and limitations of these value assessment frameworks, based on the healthcare context of countries in Asia. The panelists will also discuss what the countries need, e.g., knowledge and infrastructure, in order to apply the frameworks. Finally, the panelists will suggest the next steps for value assessment frameworks beyond QALY metric for countries in Asia. The target audiences of this issue panel are researchers, payers or policy makers, and pharmaceutical industry. The moderator and each panelist will have approximately five and 15 minutes for their presentations, respectively. The audiences will have 10 minutes to discuss and debate on the issues of value assessment frameworks beyond QALY metric.