Patient access to innovation: Biopharmaceuticals, 4th hurdles and socioeconomic issues

Abstract

Biopharmaceuticals and innovative therapeutic solutions offer treatments that are increasingly tailored to patient needs. Although biotechnology has produced health benefits, biopharmaceutical products require resources that governments had not planned or budgeted for in the appropriate time frame. As a result, economics has entered the healthcare arena without taking a number of important societal concerns into account. More specifically, several governments have introduced procedures to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of newly approved medicines. Unfortunately, patient access is not an equation of public budget figures, but an equation of government priorities. Therefore, this paper describes the limits of traditional pharmacoeconomic evaluations particularly when applied to innovative biopharmaceuticals and offers solutions to the questions they pose.