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18 January 2022
ICER and Value Assessment Frameworks: 5 key insights for biopharma
In this market access update, Emily Coriale, Senior Principal at PRMA Consulting (a member of Fishawack Health) describes the growing need, use, and impact of independent, unbiased Value Assessment Frameworks (VAFs) in the US.
Read the full article to learn more about these five key insights for pharmaceutical and biotechnology manufacturers:
- Market access professionals wanting to drive access and protect margins need to acknowledge, study, and understand the methodologies and potential downstream impact on payer coverage implicit in VAFs.
- Some biopharma manufacturers are looking the other way and imagining ICER doesn’t exist; it’s an unhealthy approach, particularly as the media have been critical of drug pricing.
- Some VAFs are more influential than others. ICER is one to track and its assessments focus on drug cost-effectiveness.
- There is evidence that payers are using ICER assessments as a negotiation tool with manufacturers.
- In 2020, ICER updated its VAF and other changes are expected to follow. In due course, we expect ICER to become the go-to source of information and the importance of VAFs in the US to increase further.
Given the potential impact of VAFs, Emily recommends that pharmaceutical and biotechnology manufacturers acknowledge the growing use of VAFs and move now to develop their own playbooks to provide guidance to global and regional market access and HEOR teams.
In this way, biopharma will be better prepared for appraisals by external stakeholders.