Pharmacoeconomics and health policy - Current applications and prospects for the future

The use of pharmacoeconomic tools has grown dramatically in the past decade as provision of healthcare throughout the industrialised world has require d increased cost consciousness. However, pharmacoeconomic analysis has not yet been fully exploited as a conceptual underpinning for public or private health policy decisions. Pharmacoeconomics is likely to become an increasi ngly important basis for health policy decisions as a number of significant dynamics evolve in the marketplace, including: (i) consumers acting on the ir growing access to information and becoming more actively involved in tre atment decisions; (ii) payers, providers and patients deepening their inter action and overcoming their traditional (narrow) focus on either costs or b enefits alone; and (iii) manufacturers being challenged by other healthcare constituencies as sponsors-of cost-based outcomes studies.