Novel methodology for pharmaceutical expenditure forecast.

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Pharmaceutical Policy
• Pharmacoeconomics

Background:

• Historical pharmaceutical expenditure data is unreliable for forecasting due to market disruptions.
• Existing forecasting methods often fail to account for uncertainty and policy changes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel methodology for pharmaceutical expenditure forecasting.
• To integrate expected policy changes and uncertainty into forecasting models.
• To support the European Commission with the 'EU Pharmaceutical expenditure forecast'.

Main Methods:

• Identified off-patent and new drugs over a 5-year period in seven EU Member States.
• Developed models for estimating savings from generics/biosimilars and sales progression for new drugs.
• Incorporated expert assessments of clinical benefits and commercial potential, alongside sensitivity analyses for uncertainty.

Main Results:

• Identified key parameters influencing pharmaceutical expenditure variations: generic discounts, brand price post-patent loss, reimbursement rates, biosimilar penetration, and time to peak sales.
• Estimated the statistical distribution of budget impact.
• Tested various pricing and reimbursement policies' effects on health expenditures.

Conclusions:

• The developed methodology is independent of historical data, offering flexibility.
• It provides probabilistic analysis to support robust policy decision-making.
• The approach effectively addresses uncertainty in pharmaceutical expenditure forecasting.