The University of Colorado Center for Pharmaceutical Value (PValue) has been established with a Value Assessment Center of Excellence Award from the PhRMA Foundation.
The foundation grant of $500,000 was awarded to Jonathan Campbell, PhD, R. Brett McQueen, PhD, and Melanie Whittington, PhD, who have primary faculty appointments in the field of Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research with the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences on the Anschutz Medical Campus.
PValue will be a center of excellence within the D2V initiative, a Transformational Research Funding project supported by the Dean’s Office of the University of Colorado School of Medicine. D2V will support PValue through a matching award of $500,000. Additional D2V support will include peer review, shared professional research assistance, project management expertise, and institutional accountability. The total award will be allocated over three years to establish PValue initiatives.
Every day, U.S. payers, employers, and others are making decisions related to what drugs are included in an insurance benefit and who is eligible for the payment of the drug (i.e. coverage and reimbursement decisions). While decisions on coverage and reimbursement should always involve human deliberation, there are ways to improve transparency, consistency, and fairness of these important decisions, and thus improve the coverage and reimbursement decision making process. PValue’s mission is to apply and test novel methods to improve pharmaceutical coverage and reimbursement decision-making. Specifically, PValue researchers will test multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) as a decision tool. PValue pilot experiments will help determine where expanded decision tools should be used alongside existing approaches to maintain transparency and consistency while introducing more fairness in pharmaceutical coverage and reimbursement decision making in the U.S.
PValue builds on prior research including a D2V pilot award granted to Campbell and McQueen in May 2017. That project demonstrated feasibility of gathering health care decision makers to discuss and prioritize characteristics that are important to consider for designing and funding future research. PValue will also build off prior research collaborations and scientific contributions to pharmaceutical value assessment to achieve its mission.
“It is an honor to be selected for this prestigious funding granted by PhRMA Foundation and matched by the D2V initiative here on the Anschutz Medical Campus,” said Campbell, who will serve as director of PValue. “PValue will foster a growth mindset and attitude toward learning from our collaborators as well as the patients and other health stakeholders we serve. PValue plans to make a positive difference in the pharmaceutical value assessment field. With the PhRMA Foundation partnership, D2V matching financial support, and an eager, nimble, and cutting-edge team of researchers, PValue will flourish.”
The PValue Center is supported by the PhRMA Foundation Value Assessment Program. This program supports multi-disciplinary, collaborative centers of excellence that build evidence, tools and partnerships to inform value assessment strategies and value-driven decision making. The awards are designed to improve patient outcomes while reducing inefficiencies in health care by better assessing the value of medicines and health care services. The foundation’s Value Assessment Initiative is aimed at encouraging more evidence-based research on how the true value of medicines can be accurately defined and quantified. To date, the Foundation has awarded more than $2.8 million.
The School of Medicine Dean’s Office is supporting five proposals through the Transformational Research Funding initiative. D2V and four other programs were selected in 2016 after a competitive process and independent evaluation. Each program is receiving funding support for a five-year budget totaling between $10 million and $20 million per program. Funding for the proposals comes from clinical earnings of the faculty, from annual financial support from the University of Colorado Health and philanthropy, including a commitment of $15 million by The Anschutz Foundation. No state-appropriated funding or student tuition or fees are being used for the Transformational Research Funding awards.
Guest contributor: CU School of Medicine