Introduction Policy-makers worldwide struggle to balance health with industrial policy objectives in the pharmaceutical sector. Tensions arise over pricing and reimbursement in particular. What health plans view as necessary to maintain equitable access to medicines, industry views as inimical...

Drug coverage decisions require information about clinically relevant benefits and risks, as well as economic information about direct and indirect costs, in comparison with relevant treatment alternatives. A recent Canadian initiative aims to improve the evidentiary basis for drug coverage...

Numerous countries have implemented centralized drug review processes to assist in making drug coverage decisions. In addition to examining the final recommendations of these bodies, it is also important to ensure fairness in decision making. Accountability for reasonableness is an ethics-based...