The true prices of drugs

Just published Evaluation and valuation of innovative medicinal products Nuijten MJC, Vis J. J Rare Dis Res Treat. (2016) 2(1): 1-11  This innovative concept can support the pricing strategy of your "expensive" products in pricing negotiations with health authorities. In this paper we are combining health economic and market access concepts with principles of business valuation to justify prices for drugs, which are not cost-effective. It may provide an argument to counterbalance increasing subjective complaints by health authorities that drug prices are too excessive and not justified. Especially for orphan drugs and biologicals, this concept is relevant and can provide a solution. Although there is no formal legal framework for this concept (yet!), it may already be useful in informal price negotiations with health authorities. As the Dutch Minister of Health proposes joint price negotiations with Netherlands and Belgium for drugs with an ICER far beyond the threshold (larger than euro 100,000/QALY). In these discussions, this approach may be used by pharma or biotech companies to justify the drug objectively and limit the discount of the drug price in these negotiations. This approach may also be relevant for price negotiations in Germany, where the ICER is not formally used.  You can get the original paper by sending an email to mark@a2m.nl.