— Input period now open until May 13, 2024 —

BOSTON, April 9, 2024 – The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) today posted a Protocol outlining how we will conduct our next analysis of “Unsupported Price Increases” (UPI) among prescription drugs within the US market.

This initiative will identify the 10 net price increases occurring in 2023 that had the largest impact on national drug spending and determine whether new clinical evidence existed that could support those price increases. To supplement the price increases identified through the Protocol’s selection criteria, ICER is seeking up to three public input suggestions for additional price increases of concern that may also warrant an evidence review. Such suggestions may include:

  • Drugs with extremely high price increases that do not have substantial budget impact at the national level
  • Drugs used by large numbers of Americans with WAC increases that did not quite  exceed medical CPI plus 2%
  • Drugs whose price increases have important affordability implications for individual patients even if not for the health care system
  • Drugs whose price increases raise concerns about the fairness of the price increases
  • Drugs with net price increases that are found to be unreliable or in available data sources but whose WAC price increases suggest review could be appropriate
  • Drugs with large increases in budget impact due to increases in net price even in the absence of increases in WAC.

Based on input from a multi-stakeholder advisory group — spanning patient advocates, life sciences companies, public and private payers — this Protocol demonstrates how price increases shall be identified and how the clinical evidence will be assessed.

The additional suggestions of concerning price increases can be emailed to publiccomments@icer.org by 5 p.m. ET on May 13, 2024.

The complete timeline for this initiative is available here.

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.