Other US Value Assessment Frameworks
The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) is not the only organization that has attempted to bring value assessment to the United States to address high pharmaceutical prices. With the federal government’s continued reluctance to embrace formal value assessment during the 2010s, other organizations introduced their own approaches. These groups included medical societies with a history of evidence-based clinical guideline development. Examples include the American Society of Clinical Oncology, National Comprehensive Cancer Network, and the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre weighed in with its online “DrugAbacus” tool. This chapter argues that these other frameworks have serious limitations, including a focus on a single clinical area, use of arbitrary scoring systems, and a lack of transparency. ICER has therefore emerged as the dominant framework for assessment of drug pricing and coverage policy.