Exploring the uptake of economic evaluation in Spanish reports positioning medicines for public reimbursement.

Therapeutic positioning reports (IPTs, Spanish acronym) are a crucial tool for informing funding and pricing decisions for drugs in the Spanish healthcare system. In 2020, for the first time the inclusion of economic evaluations (EEs) was explicitly set as a primary objective in a new Action Plan aimed at consolidating IPTs. This paper seeks to examine the uptake of EE into IPTs and to compare the methods and techniques employed in the EEs conducted during the two-year pilot phase following the reform, i.

[Analysis of equity and budgetary sustainability of the pharmaceutical co-payment system in Spain].

Objective: To estimate the impact of a more equitable pharmaceutical co-payment system by eliminating the distinction between active workers and pensioners, using only personal income as an adjustment parameter, defining more detailed income brackets, and introducing protective limits on personal expenditure.

Method: Data from a random sample of 4,505,483 individuals residing in Spain were used, matching pharmaceutical consumption information from the Ministry of Health with economic data from the Tax Agency. Five microsimulation scenarios were designed, modifying co-payment percentages and monthly limits, and the effects on public pharmaceutical spending, the economic burden between patients and the Spanish National Health System, and the redistribution of the burden among patient groups were evaluated.

[Specific proposals for organising an agency for evaluating the efficiency of health technologies and policies].

We describe in detail a twofold proposal for the creation, organization and sequential development of two bodies responsible for evaluating the efficiency of health technologies and policies in Spain and its possible design. It would constitute a key element in the process of re-organising the National Health System. The first, which could be adopted immediately, would be called the Office for the Evaluation of the Efficiency of Medicines, would be attached to the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices as a functionally independent body and limited to evaluating the efficiency of medicines.

Barriers to Biosimilar Prescribing Incentives in the Context of Clinical Governance in Spain.

Incentives contribute to the proper functioning of the broader contracts that regulate the relationships between health systems and professionals. Likewise, incentives are an important element of clinical governance understood as health services' management at the micro-level, aimed at achieving better health outcomes for patients. In Spain, monetary and non-monetary incentives are sometimes used in the health services, but not as frequently as in other countries.

Generic drug names and social welfare.

This article studies how well International Nonproprietary Names (INNs), the "generic" names for pharmaceuticals, address the problems of imperfect information. Left in private hands, the identification of medicines leads to confusion and errors. Developed in the 1950s by the World Health Organization, INNs are a common, global, scientific nomenclature designed to overcome this failure.

Competition in prescription drug markets: the roles of trademarks, advertising, and generic names.

We take on two subjects of controversy among economists-advertising and trademarks-in the context of the market for generic drugs. We outline a model in which trademarks for drug names reduce search costs but increase product differentiation. In this particular framework, trademarks may not benefit consumers.

[Grounding public health policies in ethics and economic efficiency. SESPAS report 2010].

Objectives: In recent times, various voices in Spain have questioned public health policies as an assault to personal freedom. The present article aims to respond to these voices with ethical and economic arguments.

Methods: The scope and characteristics of this current of opinion are described.

Community nutrition in Spain: advances and drawbacks.

Scientific evidence has placed community nutrition among the front-line strategies in health promotion. Community nutrition in different regions of Spain has developed at an unequal pace. Early initiatives in the mid 1980s provided good-quality population data and established a basis for nutrition surveillance including individual body measurements, dietary intake data, information on physical activity, and biomarkers.

Indirect costs of cervical and breast cancers in Spain.

This study estimated the indirect costs (productivity loss) caused by mortality and morbidity of cervical and breast cancers in Spain. We used two alternative methods: (a) the traditional human capital (HC) approach and (b) the friction cost (FC) method. The annual costs were Euro 43.

Direct health care costs of diabetic patients in Spain.

Objective: The goal of this study was to estimate the health care resources spent by type 1 and type 2 diabetic patients in Spain during the year 2002.

Research Design And Methods: This is a cost-of-illness study focusing on direct health care costs estimated from primary and secondary sources of information. A prevalence of diabetes ranging from 5 to 6% of the adult population was determined.