To fully capture the potential savings of biosimilars, governments should take measures to increase their uptake. The Belgian government, and also the manufacturers of biosimilars, should take measures to reduce the uncertainties related to biosimilars and raise confidence among prescribers. In...

DOI: 10.2165/0019053-200826100-00001

Background: After the expiry of patents for originator medicines, generic medicines can enter the market, and price competition may occur. This process generates savings to the healthcare payer and to patients, but knowledge about the factors affecting price competition in the pharmaceutical...

Background: Orphan medicinal products are designed to diagnose or treat rare diseases that are serious, life threatening or chronically debilitating and that affect 50 or fewer people in every 100 000 in the EU. In Belgium, the Drug Reimbursement Committee (DRC) evaluates reimbursement...

Generic medicines offer equally high-quality treatment as originator medicines do at much lower prices. As such, they represent a considerable opportunity for authorities to obtain substantial savings. At the moment, the pharmaceutical landscape is changing and many pharmaceutical companies have...

An orphan disease is a disease with a very low prevalence. Although there are 5000-7000 orphan diseases, only 50 orphan drugs (i.e. drugs developed to treat orphan diseases) were marketed in the EU by the end of 2008. In 2000, the EU implemented policies specifically designed to stimulate the...

This article aims to examine barriers to the efficient use of resources relating to medical devices, by focusing specifically on an economic analysis of the market structure of medical devices and on the assessment procedures for medical devices. A desktop analysis was conducted of the health...