Abstract

This particular ISPOR Task Force set out to determine the needs of decision makers in relation to pharmacoeconomic/health economic studies, in particular economic evaluations. Most health economists have been brought up to believe that there is little place for the concept of “need” unless it is defined as “capacity to benefit.” You cannot need something if you do not have the capacity to benefit from having it. So if decision makers need economic evaluations then it will be because they have the capacity to benefit from them. But that is the problem, which the Task Force has delicately uncovered (again)—it is far from clear that most decision makers do currently have the capacity to benefit from economic evaluations.