Bringing Systems Thinking To Drug Value Assessment

Date: March 11, 2025
Journal: Health Affairs Forefront
Citation: Hirsch G, Phares S, Neumann P. Bringing Systems Thinking to Drug Value Assessment. Health Affairs Forefront, March 11, 2025. DOI: 10.1377/forefront.20250310.187563

Drug value assessments generally fail to account for the complexities of health care systems and thus can misinform price negotiations and lead to overly restrictive access policies.

Studies have found that conventional cost-effectiveness analyses tend to ignore broader real-world impacts and externalities that influence the use of drugs, a lesson learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, budget-impact analyses, which often accompany cost-effectiveness analyses, suffer from the same problem, sometimes wildly overestimating drug uptake because they underestimate how systems impede access.

Incorporating systems thinking into drug value assessment promises more realistic evaluations of the impact of new therapies.

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