Background:Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease that often results in joint pain, inflammation and bone erosions. Perhaps the most notable change in RA treatment during the last decade is the advent of biologics, and, in particular, anti-tumour necrosis factor...

Background and Objective:Background and Objective: The increasing cost of chemotherapy is placing greater pressures on limited healthcare budgets. A potentially important, but often overlooked, aspect of chemotherapy is the cost associated with administration. This study aims to develop a better...

Background: Drug expenditures per capita have drastically increased over the last quarter century in Canada, with a share of overall healthcare costs rising from 8.8% in 1980 to 16.8% in 2002. Pressure to curb expenditure on drugs has increased accordingly, but containing drug expenditure might...

Background:Background: In 2005, the French Government implemented a new way of financing high-cost drugs for hospitals in order to promote innovation. Such drugs are gathered on a positive list, established by the Ministry of Health, with a reimbursement price cap. Hospitals still negotiate with...

Introduction: Studies have demonstrated that co-payments on medication reduce the consumption of both non-essential and essential drugs, and that the latter can lead to worse health outcomes. Far less is known about how patients cope with the cost of medication, particularly if affordability is...

Introduction: Pharmaceutical expenditure (PE) of the National Health Insurance (NHI) programme in Taiwan grew from 62.2 billion Taiwan new dollars ($NT) in 1996 to $NT94.5 billion in 2003.The government has been introducing many strategies to control PE since the inception of NHI including price...

Background:Background: We evaluated national rotavirus (RV) immunization programme costs to estimate how resulting changes in morbidity and mortality will influence government fiscal accounts over time. The assumption was that increased childhood survival in vaccinated cohorts leads to increased...

In response to an increase in the number of elderly people and increasing medical costs, the Japanese government implemented the Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) system for the elderly in April 2000. Three years have passed since the LTCI was initiated. The purpose of this paper is to describe...

The role of the Pharmaceutical Management Agency (PHARMAC) is to manage pharmaceutical subsidy expenditure in New Zealand. PHARMAC has adopted a proactive approach. It selects the drugs that are to be subsidised and declines to subsidise others. It has established reference pricing across many...