IQWiG in Dialogue: On the quality of health economic evaluations

Health economic evaluations (HEEs) relate the health benefits of medical interventions to their costs. In the context of the AMNOG procedure, HEEs can be used, for example, to guide the pricing of new drugs when the early benefit assessment has been completed and price negotiations between the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds and the pharmaceutical company have failed. So far, however, neither the health insurance funds nor the industry have initiated an HEE, so that the Federal Joint Committee has not yet commissioned IQWiG with an HEE. In times when the costs for certain therapies are an increasing challenge also for the German health care system, this might change.

HEEs are usually based on decision-analytic modelling, which allows the consideration of longer time horizons than clinical studies on which benefit assessments are based. The development of the models requires further information, which is not recorded in a possible preceding benefit assessment and must therefore be obtained from other data sources – for example information on different kinds of costs or epidemiological studies. Depending on the availability and quality of the data required for the HEE, the modelling and extrapolations used, and the plausibility of the associated assumptions, the credibility of HEEs can vary greatly. Before using an HEE for decision-making, one should be aware of what distinguishes a high-quality health economic analysis from one of lower quality.

The now 14th edition of “IQWiG in Dialogue” held on 16 June 2023 will therefore bring together experts from universities, research institutions, industry and HTA institutions to discuss which criteria are important for assessing the credibility of health economic models.

Registration is now open. We look forward to your participation and to a stimulating discussion at the Park Inn by Radisson Köln City West!