Dedicated Budgets for Health Economics and Outcomes Research on the Rise

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- In the United States, 59% of companies surveyed by Cutting Edge Information said that they assign a dedicated budget to health economics and outcomes research (HEOR).

Only a few years ago, most HEOR teams received all their funding indirectly through various other functions. The prevalence of dedicated budgets shows an important trend for the growing place of health economics in the pharmaceutical industry.

Cutting Edge Information’s study, “Health Economics and Outcomes Research: Aligning Clinical and Commercial to Meet Payer Demands and Win Reimbursement,” found that at 69% of drug companies, the marketing organization is the primary source for HEOR funding. Worldwide, however, dedicated HEOR budgets are the second-most popular form of funding. The exception is emerging markets, where companies tend to fund pharmacoeconomics through medical affairs, market access, and brand teams.

The source of funding is similar between companies in the US and the Europe, Canadian, Australian markets, but the average percentage of HEOR budget contributed by each source tells a different story. In a prototypical breakdown, US companies got 24% of their funding from a dedicated budget and 38% from marketing teams. The funding sources were somewhat reversed outside the US. Companies in Europe, Canada and Australia received 38% from a dedicated budget and only 18% from marketing. This difference indicates the way in which pharmacoeconomics is treated in each of these regions: the US seeing it primarily as a marketing objective and other markets viewing it more autonomously related to medical affairs.

“Dedicated budgets comprise a large percentage of HEOR funding at most companies,” said Michelle Vitko, senior research analyst at Cutting Edge Information. “More peripheral functions, such as sales and market research, tend to only contribute a small amount, which was not the case in 2010.”

“Health Economics and Outcomes Research: Aligning Clinical and Commercial to Meet Payer Demands and Win Reimbursement,” (http://www.cuttingedgeinfo.com/research/market-access/health-economics/) includes 14 highly detailed HEOR team profiles, as well as team benchmarks on structural oversight responsibilities, compensation, team size, make-up, outsourcing and centralization.

For more information about health economics and outcomes research or market access, contact Cassie Demeter, 919-403-6583.