Market Access

The Strategic Role of Discrete Choice Experiments (DCE) in Market Access

Market Access in the pharmaceutical sector aims to ensure timely and appropriate access to new therapies for patients. Traditionally, economic evaluations have focused on metrics such as QALYs (Quality-Adjusted Life Years), but Discrete Choice Experimentation (DCE) offers a methodology that allows quantitative assessments to be made of what matters most to clinicians, patients, hospital pharmacists, and, in some cases, caregivers in treatments and pathways to therapy. DCE data collected in this way can be used with regulatory authorities.

From preferences to economic utility

Preferences → Utilities

The preferences expressed by clinicians, patients, and other stakeholders can be translated into utility values.

Utility → Economic Value

These utilities are then assigned an economic value. 

In practice, an economic value can be assigned to a characteristic of a therapy (attribute) that is considered particularly important for clinicians or patients (e.g., route of administration, side effects, frequency of follow-up).

Unlike QALY, DCE can assign a value to both health outcomes and outcomes not directly related to health.

Use with Regulatory Authorities

Information on the economic value assigned to specific characteristics of therapies by stakeholders is highly relevant and can be presented to regulatory authorities.

• Market Access based on DCE is an innovative tool that is attracting increasing attention from health authorities.
• Projects such as PREFER demonstrate the importance given to measuring the preferences of patients (and other decision-makers) in healthcare.
• This data helps to confirm the value of a drug not only in terms of clinical efficacy, but also based on what different decision-makers are willing to trade off in a realistic decision-making context.