Health

Healthcare Economist Unbiased Analysis of Today’s Healthcare Issues

  • ISPOR Europe 2025!
    by Jason Shafrin on November 10, 2025 at 11:37 pm

    Excited to have finished day 1 at ISPOR Europe in Glasgow, Scotland. Come check out my session on Tuesday with Tiago Beck at 11:30-12:00pm. EU Pharmaceutical Package: Where Are We and Where Are We Going? Speakers Tiago Beck, MSc, FTI Consulting, Brussels, Belgium; Jason Shafrin, PhD, FTI Consulting, Los Angeles, CA, United States As trilogue…

  • How should managed care pharmacists work improve patient engagement?
    by Jason Shafrin on November 8, 2025 at 1:11 pm

    While for years patient engagement has been seen as a valuable, starting in 2026 this will be a legal mandate. Plans offering essential health benefits must appoint at least 1 patient representative to their pharmacy and therapeutics (P&T) committees by the start of 2026.1 After July 10, 2026, every state Medicaid program must establish standalone Beneficiary…

  • How often do US commercial health plans apply coverage restrictions to cell and gene therapies?
    by Jason Shafrin on November 6, 2025 at 6:23 am

    That is the question a new paper by Chambers et al. (2025) aims to answer. The authors use data from the Specialty Drug Evidence and Coverage (SPEC) Database, which contains coverage policies related to specialty pharmacy for a large number of US health plans, to examine how n=25 cell and gene therapies are being covered…

  • ISPOR Europe: “EU Pharmaceutical Package: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?”
    by Jason Shafrin on November 4, 2025 at 7:25 pm

    That is the title of my Fast Facts presentation at ISPOR Europe at 11:30 GMT on Tuesday, November 11 with Tiago Beck. If you’re in Glasgow next week, feel free to stop by this session. Should be interesting. The abstract is below. As trilogue negotiations on the EU pharmaceutical package progress, stakeholders across the healthcare…

  • Change to UK Rare Disease Approval Process
    by Jason Shafrin on November 4, 2025 at 2:52 am

    The Times reports that the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is revising it’s approach to how it approves new medicines that treat rare diseases. How? Principally by allowing for single arm trials with real-world ‘digital twin’ controls as well as expediting the approval process. The new plan, which is being launched on…