A structured approach for identifying disease analogs for pulmonary arterial hypertension

Drug manufacturers often use disease analogs to describe diseases-particularly rare diseases-to payers, policymakers, and stakeholders. However, these comparisons are typically anecdotal. We propose a 4-step, systematic approach to identify disease analogs based on prespecified metrics and apply it to a rare disease, pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), as a case study. When there is limited knowledge of a rare disease, such as PAH, the application of the systematic disease analog approach presented can help managed care pharmacists leverage their existing knowledge and perspectives applied to other conditions to inform coverage, tier placement, and pricing decisions.