Health Outcomes Budgets Top $30 Million at Large Pharmaceutical Companies

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC--(Marketwired - December 15, 2015) - Top 10 pharmaceutical companies' global health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) budgets range from $18 million to $30 million, according to a recent health outcomes benchmarking study published by Cutting Edge Information. Roughly half of this spending is dedicated to brand-specific HEOR activities.

The split between HEOR spending on developing compounds and marketed brands varies by company. Among those surveyed, only two central global health outcomes groups spend more on compounds than on currently marketed brands. Large pharmaceutical companies' central global HEOR groups focus their responsibility on producing data that supplement the country-level output and support their activities. At small companies, a central group may be the only department developing HEOR analysis across the entire organization. As such, it is focused on producing high-quality, targeted research.

Spending on HEOR activities reaches $30 million at one surveyed Top 10 company. Overall, HEOR activity spending is increasing at 63% of the companies surveyed. At small companies, this fluctuation can be heavily influenced by market success. One small pharmaceutical company had to drastically scale back its HEOR spending going into 2014 after a key market approval was mishandled. However, the situation has since been rectified, and HEOR spending for 2015 is expected to return to higher levels last seen in 2013.

The study, Building World-Class HEOR Teams: Creating Convincing Value Proposition for Payers, also found that health outcomes spending among surveyed Top 10 country-level affiliates is sharply on the rise, in some cases by as much as 60 percent from 2014 going into 2015. One Top 10 affiliate has a rapidly expanding group that has several products on the market requiring extensive HEOR support.

Three other affiliate health outcomes teams operating in emerging markets have small but growing budgets as they address the needs of local payers in those countries. Furthermore, two of the four surveyed Top 10 country-level groups spend more on developing compounds than on existing brands. Indicative of the tendency to delay HEOR work until close to launch, country-level groups in the U.S. tend to spend more on currently marketed brands than on products in development.

"HEOR spending is significantly lower at Top 50 country-level affiliates than at other surveyed groups," said Jacob Presson, senior analyst at Cutting Edge Information. "That being said, all of the groups in this study maintained or increased their budgets in 2015."

Building World-Class HEOR Teams: Creating Convincing Value Proposition for Payers, available at http://www.cuttingedgeinfo.com/research/market-access/health-economics-and-outcomes-research/, highlights HEOR group structure, staffing and spending at pharmaceutical and medical device companies around the world. The report's resource metrics allow health economics groups to benchmark their activities against the rest of the industry and to ensure that they are effectively supporting their products. Highlights include:

• Benchmarks showing HEOR spending per company and on a per-product basis.
• Data showing HEOR group oversight, leadership, and funding sources.
• Executive perspectives on demonstrating the value of HEOR internally.
• Insights on how to ensure that stakeholders beyond payers, such as patients and physicians, are understood when developing health economics research.
• Profiles of HEOR group structure, spending and activities.

To download a brochure of Building World-Class HEOR Teams: Creating Convincing Value Proposition for Payers, visit http://www.cuttingedgeinfo.com/download/?ref=23793.