Value Assessment in Precision Cancer Medicine

Publication date: Available online 9 September 2016 Source:Journal of Cancer Policy Author(s): Adrian Towse, Louis Garrison Oncology is the initial prime clinical area of precision medicine applications. This paper identifies and discusses key conceptual, implementation, and policy issues in applying value assessment in precision cancer medicine. The economic complementarity of tests and diagnostics is important to recognize because of the challenges it creates in defining their specific contribution to value. There are three key aspects to this: (a) the institutional arrangments, (b) the evidence requirements, and (c) the division of value as between the drug and the diagnostic, such that both receive a value-related price. Controversy over the prices of some cancer medicines makes the possibility of targetting treatments to sub-populations attractive to payers. The value of test-drug combinations goes beyond health gain and health system cost-offsets to include several elements related to the value of knowing, such as the value of reduced uncertainty, of insurance, and of scientific spillovers. The use of flexible value-based pricing for cancer drugs and for diagnostic tests based for incremental value for both is needed to encourge personalised medicine. However, application will become even more challenging in precision medicine given the increasing use of combination therapies and multiple biomarker-based tests. As assessment of the value of a drug-diagnostic combina...
Source: Journal of Cancer Policy - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research