User 395910

Comparing Medicine’s Cost and Effectiveness

In the 90's the pharmaceutical industry set up groups and departments with the intent of demonstrating cost/benefit advantages for its products. The studies were too complicated to implement routinely, too difficult to interpret and had absolutely no payoff in terms of regulatory agency or insurance industry acceptance. Moreover the cost for these programs was prohibitive. The $1.1 billion federal government grant is a drop in the bucket, considering that most outcome trials today cost hundreds of millions of dollars. I don't expect to see many scientifically sound studies to come out of this effort and the results will likely be more smoke than fire. The "screaming" headlines, however, should be entertaining.