OBJECTIVES: A pilot study investigated how an efficiency frontier justified methodology can help inform the value-based price potential for future rheumatoid arthritis assets.

METHODS: The efficiency frontier is defined by interventions whose cost-benefit relationship is the most efficient when all comparators are simultaneously compared. Moving incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) from one intervention to another allows interventions with negative efficiencies and those with absolute dominance (when a treatment delivers additional value for no incremental costs and/or equivalent value for lower costs) to be identified. Willingness-to-pay (WTP) values related to three distinct measures of benefit – European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) remission, EULAR good response or remission (selected base case) and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) – were obtained through UK and US payer interviews. Equipped with those, we compared the economically justified price (EJP), the price at which the treatment will meet the market’s acceptable ICER threshold, with the value justified price (VJP), the price estimate based on payers’ WTP for selected outcomes and the efficiency frontier justified price (EFJP).

RESULTS: The EFJP depended on the measure of benefit used but regardless of choice and whether the US or UK context was analysed, EFJPs were markedly greater than the EJP and VJP. The difference stems from the simultaneous comparison with all comparators.

CONCLUSIONS: The EFJP method may be a useful approach for assessing value-based price potential or supporting value narratives under certain conditions. For new non-superior treatments, the EFJP method establishes where benefits are delivered at an efficient price compared to alternatives. Comparisons between the EFJP and the submission price can also be used to justify the price relative to alternatives and historic decisions given the value of the product. Overall, it is a useful addition to evaluating price potential and investment decisions into future assets for pharmaceutical companies.