Early Treatment with Fluvoxamine among Patients with COVID-19: A Cost-Consequence Model.

To date, two published randomized trials have indicated a clinical benefit of early treatment with fluvoxamine versus placebo for adults with symptomatic COVID-19. Using the results of the largest of these trials, the TOGETHER trial, we conducted a cost-consequence analysis to assess the health system benefits of preventing progression to severe COVID-19 in outpatient populations in the United States. A decision-analytic model in the form of a decision tree was constructed to evaluate two treatment strategies for high-risk patients with confirmed, symptomatic COVID-19 in the primary analysis: treatment with a 10-day course of fluvoxamine (100 mg twice daily) and current standard-of-care.

Stakeholders' feedback on the proposed recommendations for updating the patented medicine prices review board (pmprb) budget impact analysis guidelines.

Introduction: The present study aimed to obtain Canadian stakeholders' feedback on a list of proposed recommendations for updating the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB)'s 2007 budget impact analysis (BIA) guidelines.

Methods: A mixed-methods study was designed to obtain feedback from two stakeholder perspectives-(public and private) payers and manufacturers-on the proposed BIA recommendations. We obtained policymakers' opinion through one-on-one interviews and collected feedback from manufacturers and their consultants using a survey.

A Comparison of Pharmaceutical Budget Impact Analysis (BIA) Recommendations Amongst the Canadian Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB), Public and Private Payers.

The Canadian budget impact analysis (BIA) guidelines were published by the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB) in 2007. Some Canadian federal, provincial and territorial (F/P/T) drug plans have updated their BIA guidelines since then. The aim of the present review was to provide a comprehensive list of the key BIA recommendations from the various Canadian F/P/T drug plans and private payers and to highlight the differences between those guidelines and the recommendations that were in the Canadian PMPRB 2007 BIA guidelines.

Activities of the pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance: An Observational Analysis.

Background: The pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance (pCPA) was established in 2010 to negotiate confidential prices for drugs coming forward from Canada's centralized health technology assessment (HTA) agency reviews, on behalf of the participating public drug plans.

Objective:  To analyze the activities of the pCPA, to determine: alignment of HTA agency recommendations and pCPA negotiation decisions; the role of health economics in pCPA activities; and patterns of implicit prioritization.

Methods: The analysis was based on the archive of drugs handled through the pCPA, as posted on its website.

Earlier initialization of highly active antiretroviral therapy is associated with long-term survival and is cost-effective: findings from a deterministic model of a 10-year Ugandan cohort.

Background: Raising the guidelines for the initiation of antiretroviral therapy in resource-limited settings at CD4 T-cell counts of 350 cells per microliter raises concerns about feasibility and cost. We examined costs of this shift using data from Uganda for almost 10 years.

Methods: We projected total costs of earlier initiation with combined antiretroviral therapy, including inpatient and outpatient services, antiretroviral treatment and treatment for limited HIV-related opportunistic diseases, and benefits expressed in years-of-life-saved over 5- and 30-year time horizons using a deterministic economic model to examine the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER), expressed in cost per year-of-life-saved (YLS).

Intensive statin therapy compared with moderate dosing for prevention of cardiovascular events: a meta-analysis of >40 000 patients.

Aims: Statin therapy is associated with important benefits for patients at risk of, and with, established cardiovascular disease. There is widespread interest in whether intensive dosing of statins yields larger treatment effects. We aimed to determine if intensive dosing is clinically important using a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials (RCTs).