Main description:

Modern drugs are invented according to medical needs, making use of the latest innovations in technology. They are sophisticated, efficacious, and costly, but are they effective? Are they superior to existing - and cheaper - alternatives, and is this superiority reflected in increased cost-effectiveness? Are they socially more beneficial? These questions, and those related to the intriguing search for better quality of life, are addressed in this book by experts from the fields of medicine, epidemiology, economics, sociology and the pharmaceutical industry. The book describes the environmental situation in the United States and Europe in which pharmaceutical development takes place; it also explores the grounds for agreement as well as disagreement between the social and the economic evaluations of progress. It tackles the problem of outcome measurements, patients' behavior, quality of life, and individual value judgments and describes methodological boundaries in the socioeconomic evaluation of drugs.

Contents:

Opening Address.- I: The Role of Economics in Drug Therapy.- 1. The Changing Economic Milieu in the United States.- 2. The Economic Milieu in Europe: View of the Common Market.- 3. The Economic Milieu in Europe: View of the Pharmaceutical Industry.- 4. Pharmaceuticals and Decision-making in the United States: Cost Consciousness and the Changing Locus of Control.- 5. What Price Pharmaceutical Innovation?.- 6. The Medical, Social, and Economic Implications of Disease.- 7. From Medical to Socioeconomic Evaluation of Drug Therapy.- 8. Discussion of Part I.- II: Measuring the Effectiveness of Drug Therapy - The Economic Criteria.- 9. Cost-Effectiveness Study of Pharmaceuticals: Methodological Considerations.- 10. The Impact of Angina Pectoris on the Patient and the Influence of Treatment.- 11. The Socioeconomic Study Program on Nitroderm TTS.- 12. Cost - Cost Comparisons of Nitroderm TTS in Switzerland and Austria.- 13. The Cost-Effectiveness of Transdermal Nitroglycerin in the Michigan Medicaid Program: A Preliminary Report.- 14. Cost-Benefit Analysis of Angina Prophylaxis in the Federal Republic of Germany.- 15. Discussion of Part II.- III: Measuring the Effectiveness of Drug Therapy - Social and Qualitative Criteria.- 16. Quality of Life - Principles and Methodology.- 17. Quality of Life in Angina Pectoris: A Swedish Randomized Cross-over Comparison Between Transiderm-Nitro and Long-Acting Oral Nitrates.- 18. Transdermal Nitrate Therapy in Coronary Heart Disease from the Patient's Point of View - A Quality of Life Study in the Federal Republic of Germany.- 19. Angina Pectoris Prophylaxis and Quality of Life.- 20. Physician and Patient Preference.- 21. Patient Compliance in the Prophylaxis of Angina Pectoris.- 22. Discussion of Part III.- IV: Panel Discussion on the Outlook for Socioeconomic Evaluation of Drug Therapy.- 23. Outlook for Socioeconomic Evaluation of Drug Therapy: Science's Point of View.- 24. Outlook for Socioeconomic Evaluation of Drug Therapy: Society's Point of View.- 25. Outlook for Socioeconomic Evaluation of Drug Therapy: The Company's Point of View.- 26. Editor's Note.- V: Envoi.- 27. Envoi.- 28. Curriculum Vitae of Authors.