BOSTON, November 30, 2020 – The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) today formally launched ICER Analytics™, a new cloud-based platform that will revolutionize the ability of payers, life science companies, patient groups, and others to develop formularies, negotiate drug prices, and explore new ways to apply evidence in a drive toward a health system that can achieve fair prices and fair access for all.
“Over the past 14 years, ICER has dedicated itself to catalyzing more transparent public dialogue on value and to support evidence-based pricing and access,” said Steven D. Pearson, MD, MSc, ICER’s President. “It has been rewarding to see patient groups become increasingly involved in these efforts. Similarly, the use of our work has grown as life sciences companies, payers, and state and federal policymakers all seek ways to achieve higher value in the health care system. Now is the right time to accelerate this process by providing a new tool that puts all of ICER’s work at one’s fingertips. Not only will ICER Analytics help people search and sort through our reports, but it will also make everything that we do more customizable and actionable. Those who want to insert their own evidence; who want to use the backbone of an ICER economic model to make a customized argument for value with a client or a negotiating partner; who want to compare quickly their own prices to the prices at different cost-effectiveness thresholds or using alternative measures to the QALY — all will find this now possible. Patient groups, financial analysts, employer groups — everyone will find new ways to use our work. ICER Analytics supercharges our ability to help those who participate in research development, pricing, and coverage decisions both here at home and internationally do so transparently, using the best evidence, and in service of a better health care system for all.”
While all of ICER’s reports will remain in the public domain as downloadable PDFs from our website, ICER Analytics is comprised of two tools geared toward frequent users of ICER’s work:
• The ICER Evidence Compendium™ is a rapidly searchable and sortable summary of results from ICER’s library of evidence reports. In addition to the clinical effectiveness ratings and pricing benchmarks for each drug and indication, the Evidence Compendium allows users to enter their own pricing to compare to ICER price benchmarks. To help support internal assessments by payers and their Pharmacy & Therapeutics (P&T) committees, the Evidence Compendium has a separate section containing exclusive curated report material and videos from ICER appraisal committee meetings, including narrative summaries of insights gained from patients, key evidence tables, comparative clinical effectiveness votes, expert testimony from clinicians and patients on broader dimensions of value, and perspectives on potential coverage criteria and pricing policy.
• The ICER Interactive Modeler™ provides access to a growing set of ICER economic models, all of which will be customizable by the end user. The Interactive Modeler provides users with a deeper understanding of ICER’s models and architecture, as well as the ability to insert their own prices, their own data on patient characteristics, or their own assumptions about drug performance and uptake. Payers will be able to perform multiple iterations to explore the impact on health outcomes and budget impact. Life science companies will be able to “publish” their own alternative cost-effectiveness findings into the ICER Evidence Compendium so that payers will see both the original ICER results and those of the manufacturer side-by-side.
What Can Payers, Life Science Companies, and Others Do with ICER Analytics?
Insurers, health systems, and pharmacy benefit managers can use ICER Analytics in formulary development and adoption, internal assessment and P&T committee prep, long-term value and budget impact modeling, and development of outcomes-based agreements.
Life sciences companies can use ICER Analytics to formulate a pre-market research or pricing strategy, inform market access strategy at launch and post-market, and catalyze the shift to a “Total Cost of Care” focus.
Many others will find their own goals advanced by use of ICER Analytics, from patient groups seeking a full seat at the table with payers or life science companies to discuss pricing and access; to employers who wish to have a tool to evaluate their own benefit design options and to be able to query their PBMs and insurers on how maximum value is being achieved; to financial analysts and investors who want to forecast threshold pricing or threshold effectiveness targets for emerging drugs based on previous economic modeling efforts.
In addition, international health technology assessment (HTA) organizations from around the world have already sought and obtained access to the ICER-COVID model through ICER Analytics. These organizations include United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Australia’s Technical Assessment and Access Division (a division of the Australian Government Department of Health), the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), Quebec’s Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux (INESSS), and MOSAIC, a South African health economic modeling collective.
Informational Webinar and Subscription Information
On December 17, 2020, from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. EST, ICER will host a webinar with representatives from both the payer and pharmaceutical industries to demo the tool and discuss how they plan to use it. Panelists include Susan Shiff, PhD, MBA, Merck’s Senior Vice President and Head of the Center for Observational and Real World Evidence (CORE); Pat Gleason, PharmD, Prime Therapeutics’ Assistant Vice President, Health Outcomes; and David Eckwright, PharmD, Prime Therapeutics’ Principal Health Outcomes Researcher. Register to attend the webinar here. For those who are unable to attend the live webinar, a recording will be made available afterward at https://analytics.icer.org.
ICER and the National Health Council (NHC) are launching a pilot program that will enable patient organizations (voluntary health agencies) that belong to NHC’s membership to access ICER Analytics for free. Access for non-NHC members will be granted on a case-by-case basis. In addition, ICER is providing free access to all HTA organizations from low- or middle-income countries. For all other stakeholders, subscription prices will be scaled by organization type and size.
Any potential users interested in learning more are encouraged to complete this survey.
ICER Analytics is available through ICER and FormularyDecisions™, a secure online platform from Xcenda that facilities the exchange of information between payers and life sciences companies. FormularyDecisions supports more than 2,400 registered formulary decision makers representing 275 million covered lives. ICER’s Interactive Modeler is powered by Digital Health Outcomes, a global leader in designing software to help unlock the true potential of health economics models by allowing users to easily adapt information for their decision-making.
About ICER
The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) is an independent non-profit research institute that produces reports analyzing the evidence on the effectiveness and value of drugs and other medical services. ICER’s reports include evidence-based calculations of prices for new drugs that accurately reflect the degree of improvement expected in long-term patient outcomes, while also highlighting price levels that might contribute to unaffordable short-term cost growth for the overall health care system.
ICER’s reports incorporate extensive input from all stakeholders and are the subject of public hearings through three core programs: the California Technology Assessment Forum (CTAF), the Midwest Comparative Effectiveness Public Advisory Council (Midwest CEPAC), and the New England Comparative Effectiveness Public Advisory Council (New England CEPAC). These independent panels review ICER’s reports at public meetings to deliberate on the evidence and develop recommendations for how patients, clinicians, insurers, and policymakers can improve the quality and value of health care. For more information about ICER, please visit ICER’s website.