NPC in Specialty Pharmacy Times: Why We Need to Consider the Proven Value of Drug Therapies

In his latest column for Specialty Pharmacy Times, National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC) President and Chief Executive Officer Dan Leonard explores recent research from the NPC and RTI Health Solutions that found biopharmaceuticals provide substantial health care benefits at modest cost — and that the reductions in mortality and morbidity in the top seven conditions causing death and disease between 1995 and 2015 show that spending on care for these conditions goes beyond cost and demonstrates value. Taken together with two other studies explored in the commentary, these research results provide powerful proof with which to challenge the conventional wisdom that all health care spending is out of control.

The time has come for a robust national conversation about the cost of health care in the United States.

As we debate who and how we should pay for health care, it’s also critical that we make clear what we expect to get for those payments: high-quality, cost-effective care that improves patient outcomes — in other words, looking beyond cost to examine value. Although value may be difficult to define, it’s not impossible.

In his latest column for Specialty Pharmacy Times, National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC) President and Chief Executive Officer Dan Leonard explores recent research from the NPC and RTI Health Solutions that found biopharmaceuticals provide substantial health care benefits at modest cost — and that the reductions in mortality and morbidity in the top seven conditions causing death and disease between 1995 and 2015 show that spending on care for these conditions goes beyond cost and demonstrates value. Taken together with two other studies explored in the commentary, these research results provide powerful proof with which to challenge the conventional wisdom that all health care spending is out of control.

>> Read Mr. Leonard’s column in Specialty Pharmacy Times to learn more.