Dr Darius Lakdawalla Previews the ISPOR 2024 Conference

ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research 2024 conference will take place this year in Atlanta, GA from March 5-8, to discuss the latest methodologies, data analytics, and evidence-based approaches that drive transformative changes in health and well-being.

Value-based benefit design is of upmost importance in the pharmaceutical industry, and there is also a need for potential for cost sharing policies to exacerbate existing inequalities in health care, says Darius Lakdawalla, PhD, director of research, Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics, University of Southern California (USC). Lakdawalla will be attending ISPOR as a presenter.

Transcript

What are you looking forward to the most at this year’s ISPOR conference?

I think it's a pivotal time for pharmacoeconomics right now with the rising importance of value assessment in the US market and growing questions about how to demonstrate value and pay for value. So, I'm excited to see what developments the field has come to over the past year. I'm particularly interested in working towards strategies for bringing those research findings into the policy sphere to improve the way that we value drugs and pay for drugs.

What do you hope attendees take away from the conference and the session you are presenting on?

One of the most important issues that we'll be discussing in our session on cost sharing is the role of health insurance in mediating the allocation of prescription drugs and the value of prescription drugs. From that perspective, I think that there's been too much focus on patient cost sharing and not enough focus on getting value right, when determining what innovators should earn for their drugs.

Cost sharing has often been a tool for denying access to patients, frequently with deleterious impacts on their health. But instead, it should be used as a strategy for ensuring that the right drug is provided to the right patient at the right time.