Healthcare Technology Featured Article

June 28, 2012

Study Finds Clinical Outcomes, Health Technology Assessments Good for Different Things


It’s medicine versus costs again. 

A recent study examined the value of clinical outcomes compared to Health Technology Assessments (HTA). While clinical outcomes are often broader in scope, HTAs – which are reportedly influential in decision-making for approving and providing reimbursement for pharmaceuticals and other medical technology – are what has a direct impact on reimbursement decisions, according to a Context Matters study.

The survey also found, however, that clinical outcomes and HTAs often overlapped. The study was done on Hepatitis C drugs. 

"While clinical trial data certainly provides the broadest range of outcomes to pharmaceutical companies, the outcomes that drive regulatory approval are not always inclusive of those that drive reimbursement," said Yin Ho, MD, MBA, CEO at New York-based Context Matters and co-author of the study. "HTAs often weigh patient-reported measures, which clinical trial outcomes do to a lesser extent.”

“When we evaluate the copious amounts of data available for both approval and reimbursement, it is instructive to recognize the trends of which measures were influential in making both regulatory and reimbursement decisions, in order to best predict future outcomes for Hepatitis C and other treatment areas," Ho added.

You could say clinical outcomes focus more on medical results, while HTAs are directed at costs, though most reimbursements are based on a combination of both.

The results of a recent clinical trial on those with chronic Hepatitis C found there are noninvasive ways to test for liver disease, a common illness that’s part of the virus.   Treatments, drugs and disease prevention tactics are all based on clinical outcomes.

Clinical trials are absolutely vital in developing new treatments, care and prevention for people with cancer and other diseases. 

HTAs, long a staple in U.S. healthcare, recently made their way to Europe. “More countries are adopting more HTA approaches at a national and regional level,” Steven Flostrand, pricing and market access director at Creativ-Ceutical, told Leela Barham. 

Barham reports that the increase in HTAs has led to initiatives at the European level, both in the industry, the European Commission.

The Context Matters study examined clinical outcomes for Hepatitis C drugs from 42 technology assessments across seven agencies, as well as 41 current clinical trials from 2006-2012.




Edited by Braden Becker
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