Stakeholder perception of pharmaceutical value: A multicriteria decision analysis pilot case study for value assessment in the United States

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Recent attention to value frameworks has highlighted limitations of current conventional value and health technology assessment (V/HTA) methods (eg, cost-effectiveness). Multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) has potential as a supplemental tool to incorporate additional value criteria into conventional value assessment.

OBJECTIVE:

To conduct a pilot study to illustrate the impact of an MCDA approach on the value perceptions of hypothetical treatment profiles from a multistakeholder panel.

METHODS:

Participants voted on value perceptions of 2 hypothetical treatments with similar cost-effectiveness evidence: Treatment A for aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma in adults and treatment B for episodic migraine in adults. Participants voted treatments A and B as low, intermediate, or high value before and after a weighting exercise on prespecified, additional value criteria. Weights from participants were used to calculate treatment-specific MCDA scores from 0 (least favorable) to 100 (most favorable) and were presented to participants for a second value-perception vote. Analyses compared changes in value perceptions within treatments A and B post-MCDA exercise.

RESULTS:

Before considering MCDA scores for treatment A, 0% of participants considered it to be low, 52% intermediate, and 48% high value. After considering MCDA scores for treatment A, 4% considered it low, 29% intermediate, and 67% high value. Both before and after considering MCDA scores for treatment B, 13%, considered it low, 57% intermediate, and 30% high value. Mean MCDA scores for treatments A and B were 67 and 63, respectively. Of all stakeholders, 41% altered their perception of value for treatment A (9% negatively and 32% positively) and, separately, 45% for treatment B (23% both negatively and positively) after considering MCDA scores.

CONCLUSIONS:

With nearly half of participants altering their perception of value after consideration of additional value criteria, findings support the need for a more inclusive and flexible value assessment process.

Plain language summary

When deciding how much to pay for a prescription drug, people rate each drug on things such as cost and the potential for improving people’s lives. We asked a group of people to rate how important 2 drugs were before and after thinking about additional things not often included in existing ratings. Almost half of the people changed their ratings, suggesting we should include more things when deciding how much to pay for a drug.