OBJECTIVES: France included Health Economic Assessment (HEA) as an official criterion in innovative drug pricing since 2013. Until now, no cost-effectiveness threshold (CET) has been officially proposed to qualify ICERs. Nevertheless, necessity for including reference value is publicly claimed by French Health Authority. Unfortunately, former initiatives failed to propose such values. We propose a locally adapted method to estimate a preference-based value for a QALY based on a rational approach to public policy choices in France.

METHODS:We used the official French VSL (Value of Statistical Life) of €3 million, proposed in 2013 by the French General Commission on Strategy and Prediction. Using the proposed formula to estimate VoLY (Value of Life Year) by category of age according to life expectancy and official discounts recommended for HEA in France, we estimated a VSQ (Value of Statistical QALY) weighing VoLYs both with demographic French data and EQ-5D_3L French tariffs.

RESULTS:On average a €128,126 VoLY and a €157,378 VSQ were calculated

CONCLUSIONS: Assuming that in healthcare as in other public domains, the commitment is the same whatever the area and individuals who are involved we proposed a VSQ estimate that is consistent with this hypothesis. Our €157,378 estimate should be perceived as a breakeven cost for a QALY rather than a market access threshold mostly dedicated to respect budget constraints. Such VSQ could be used to qualify ICERs in health-economic assessment in France.