Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5773

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Maurer SM.
Choosing the right incentive strategy for research and development in neglected diseases.
Bull World Health Organ 2006 May 01; 84:(5):376-81
http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0042-96862006000500017&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en

Abstract:

For the first time in history, worldwide neglected disease budgets may be large enough to deliver a new drug every few years. That said, sponsors will only succeed if they extract maximum value from every dollar spent. This paper reviews possible cost-containment strategies and provides an evidence-based framework for choosing between them. Current proposals can be categorized as “end-to-end” proposals which require the sponsor to set a single reward for companies that complete the entire drug discovery process or “pay-as-you-go” schemes in which sponsors offer repeated rewards as drug candidates progress through the pipeline. A generic weakness of end-to-end proposals is that rewards are likely to be 20-30% higher than they would be in an equivalent pay-as-you-go programme. However, the benefits of pay-as-you-go programmes may be lost if commercial pharmaceutical companies are substantially better at choosing successful programmes than are their non-profit counterparts. The efficiency of pay-as-you-go methods depends on sponsors’ willingness to withdraw funding from failed drug discovery programmes.

Keywords:
Health Priorities Humans Motivation* Orphan Drug Production* Research* World Health