The role of pharmacoeconomic information from the pharmaceutical industry perspective

The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that pharmaceutical industry representatives believe are important in the drug benefit decisions of MCOs. Respondents indicated that a drug's clinical features and acquisition cost were the most important factors in making drug-coverage decisions. Ninety percent of respondents indicated that they provide some type of pharmacoeconomic data on either some or almost every visit with their customers. Twenty (95%) of 21 respondents thought that current pharmacoeconomic information was helpful to MCOs in making drug benefit decisions. However, 80% thought important barriers existed to using health outcome and pharmacoeconomic data.