Specialty Medicines Research

Specialty medicines, many of which are products of biotechnology advances, can provide novel and potentially life-changing treatment options for a growing number of serious conditions, including cancers and inflammatory diseases.  At the same time, the increasingly high costs of specialty medicines represent an enormous economic burden to patients and society.  Allocating scarce resources to specialty medicines involves many difficult ethical and economic decisions for both families and payers. Tackling these challenges in different health system contexts and from different perspectives requires a new program of multi-disciplinary, multi-method research.   
 
The Specialty Medicines Research Program seeks to generate evidence to support decision making by different stakeholders in health systems in the US and globally on providing access to, financing, and managing specialty medicines. DPRG faculty conducting research in this area include Drs. Christine Lu, Dennis Ross-Degnan, and Anita Wagner.
 
Research activities focus on:
  • Market entry and pricing of specialty medicines
  • Strategies for providing access to specialty medicines
  • Affordability of specialty medicines (to health systems; to households)
  • Appropriate and inappropriate use of specialty medicines
  • Impacts of approaches to manage access and use
  • Comparative effectiveness and safety of specialty medicines
  • Value of specialty medicines
  • Ethical dimensions of decision making around specialty medicines
  • Value, use, and impacts of biosimilars
 
Related Publications
  • Lu CY, Lupton C, Rakowsky S, Ross-Degnan D, Wagner AK. Patient Access Schemes in Asia-Pacific Markets: Current Experience and Future Potential. J Pharm Policy Pract. 2015;8(1):6. 
  • Sruamsiri R, Wagner AK, Ross-Degnan D, Lu CY, Chaiyakunapruk N. Policies and programs to facilitate access to targeted cancer therapies in Thailand. PLoS One 2015; 10(3):e0119945.
  • Sruamsiri R, Wagner AK, Ross-Degnan D, Lu CY, Chaiyakunapruk N. A national high-cost medicines access program increases high-cost medicines utilization, improves health outcomes and decreases per patient cost of care in Thailand. BMJ open 2016 (in press).
  • Lu CY, March L, Sansom L, Bertouch J, Williams K, Day R. Access to high cost drugs in Australia: Risk sharing scheme may set a new paradigm. BMJ 2004;329(7463):415-416. 
  • Hall W, Ward R, Liauw W, Brien J, Lu CY. Tailoring access to high cost, genetically targeted drugs. Med J Aust 2005;182(12):607-608.
  • Lu CY, Williams K, Day R. Access to tumor necrosis factor inhibitors for Rheumatoid Arthritis treatment under the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Are we on target? Intern Med J 2006;36(1):19-27.
  • Lu CY, Ritchie J, Williams K, Day R. The views of stakeholders on controlled access schemes for high-cost antirheumatic biological medicines in Australia. Aus NZ Health Policy 2007; 4:26.
  • Lu CY, Williams K, Day R. The funding and use of high-cost medicines in Australia: the example of anti-rheumatic biological medicines. Aus NZ Health Policy 2007; 4:2. 
  • Lu CY, Williams K, Day R. Has the use of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs changed as a consequence of controlled access to high-cost biological agents through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme? Intern Med J 2007;37(9):601-606. 
  • Lu CY, Macneill P, Williams K, Day R. Access to high cost medicines in Australia: ethical perspectives. Aus NZ Health Policy 2008; 5:4. doi: 10.1186/1743-8462-5-4.
  • Lu CY, Srasbuekul P, Drew A, Ward R, Pearson SA. Positive spillover effects of prescribing requirements: increased cardiac testing in patients treated with Trastuzumab for HER2+ metastatic breast cancer. Int Med J 2012; 42(11):1229-35. 
  • Lu CY, Srasbuekul P, Drew AK, Chen K, Ward RL, Pearson SA. Trastuzumab therapy in Australia: which patients with HER2+ metastatic breast cancer are assessed for cardiac function? The Breast 2013;22(4):482-7.
Related Links