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Updated: May 26, 2026

Cost-Efficient Transcriptomic-Based Drug Screening
Published on: February 23, 2024
Presenting Germany's drug pricing rule as a cost-per-QALY rule
1Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Frankfurt, Germany. a.gandjour@fs.de
Abstract:
In Germany, the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) makes recommendations for ceiling prices of drugs based on an evaluation of the relationship between costs and effectiveness. To set ceiling prices, IQWiG uses the following decision rule: the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of a new drug compared with the next effective intervention should not be higher than that of the next effective intervention compared to its comparator. The purpose of this paper is to show that IQWiG's decision rule can be presented as a cost-per-QALY rule by using equity-weighted QALYs. This transformation shows where both rules share commonalities. Furthermore, it makes the underlying ethical implications of IQWiG's decision rule transparent and open to debate.
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