The UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) invited the manufacturer of erlotinib (Roche) to submit evidence for the clinical and cost effectiveness of erlotinib as monotherapy for the maintenance treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and stable...

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) invited the manufacturer of denosumab (Amgen Inc., UK) to submit evidence for the clinical and cost effectiveness of denosumab for the prevention of fragility fractures in post-menopausal women, as part of the Institute's single...

All healthcare systems routinely make resource allocation decisions that trade off potential health gains to different patient populations. However, when such trade-offs relate to the introduction of new, promising health technologies, perceived 'winners' and 'losers' are more apparent. In...

Comparative effectiveness research (CER) is generating intense attention as interest grows in finding new and better drug technology assessment processes. The federal government is supporting the expansion of CER through funding made available in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of...

Comparative effectiveness research should provide much-needed information about the benefits and risks of different current treatment options in the community. Taking the perspective of medical care providers, we consider many of the psychological, social and behavioural hurdles to...

Economists engaged in comparative effectiveness research (CER) commonly adopt particular value judgements that underpin many of their methods. Two of these are the idea of a 'societal perspective' and that the foundation of values in measures of health outcome is individual preferences. This...