Deep Dive: Deep Dive Into Drug Pricing

Drug pricing is a fraught, controversial and complex subject. Prices in the U.S. are high — the highest in the world — a burden on patients, on the healthcare system, on society as a whole. But so, in many cases, is the value in terms of illness treated, suffering averted, and lives extended. And the pace of innovation is the fastest it has been ever been.

Today we have one of the world’s leading experts on drug pricing and cost effectiveness as our guide. Dan Ollendorf is director of value measurement and global health initiatives at the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk (CEVR) at Tufts University Medical Center in Boston and before Tufts was the chief scientific officer for ICER — the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review. ICER’s cost-effectiveness evaluations have become increasingly important in drug pricing and payment decisions and discussions throughout American healthcare.