Value Assessment Framework
The ICER value framework describes the conceptual framework and set of associated methods that guide the development of ICER evidence reports. The purpose of the value framework is to form the backbone of rigorous, transparent evidence reports that, as a basis for broader stakeholder and public engagement, will help the United States evolve toward a health care system that provides sustainable access to high-value care for all patients.
The initial framework was developed with input from a multi-stakeholder workgroup that included the perspective of patient advocates, clinical societies, life sciences companies, pharmaceutical benefit managers, and insurers. All participants provided input into the development of the value assessment framework but none should be assumed to approve of its approach.
In 2020, ICER received feedback from 60 stakeholder organizations during an open call for suggested revisions, and from 41 organizations after ICER posted proposed revisions for comment in August 2019, which are woven into the final document.
The next update cycle is planned for 2023.
- The 2020 Value Assessment Framework
- The 2020 Value Assessment Framework Webinar with ICER’s President, Steve Pearson
- The 2020 Value Assessment Framework Webinar Slides
- For treatments for ultra-rare, serious disease, please see ICER’s framework adaptations
- For therapies that may be potential cures, please see ICER’s white paper on potential cures
- For therapies that may treat COVID-19, please see ICER’s adaptations for evaluating price during a pandemic
- Adaptations to ICER’s Process (October 2020)
- Nominate a topic for ICER to review
Dr. Steven Pearson presents ICER’s updated Value Assessment Framework.
Click here to download the updated slide deck.
Potential Budget Impact Threshold Updated for 2022-2023
ICER is committed to ensuring its methods and processes are aligned with current information on the health care environment in the US. In July 2022, ICER updated its annual budget impact threshold for prescription drug therapies from $734 million to $777 million. This update reflects the annual number of FDA approvals blended over the last five years, as well as estimates for US medical spending, pharmaceutical spending, and gross domestic product (GDP) blended over the last five years for which data exist. We note that the change in GDP was negative when comparing 2020 to 2019. As opposed to using a negative GDP percent change value, we again assigned a 0% change for the year 2020 and we averaged over five years to minimize the impact that a global pandemic had on our updated estimates.
When annual US spending on a specific drug is likely to exceed this threshold, ICER’s report will highlight potential short-term affordability and access challenges. The report will also include the maximum percentage of eligible patients who would be able to receive the therapy, at multiple possible price points, without exceeding the threshold. However, the intent of the budget impact analysis is neither to forecast market uptake projections nor to provide estimates of commonly reported budget impact metrics (e.g., net cost per-member per-month).
The budget impact threshold will continue to be calculated as double the average net budget impact that would contribute to overall health care cost growth exceeding current growth in the US economy. Updated calculations with sources for data are shown below.
Adaptation of the ICER value framework for the assessment of treatments for ultra-rare conditions
ICER’s modified framework for ultra-rare conditions is the culmination of a nine-month public process of engagement with the rare disease patient community, the life sciences industry, and US health care payers. We updated the framework in 2020. As part of this process, ICER published a white paper discussing the evidentiary and ethical challenges associated with evaluating treatments for rare conditions, hosted a multi-stakeholder policy summit, and accepted public comment from more than 50 organizations and individuals regarding an initial proposal of framework modifications. ICER looks forward to ongoing input from the entire stakeholder community and launched a formal update to these methods in 2019.
ICER is aware that questions are being raised about the best way to assess the cost-effectiveness and calculate value-based prices for emerging treatments that are considered to be potential cures. Some would argue that potential cures offer benefits incompletely captured by traditional utility measurements related to the added well-being patients and families realize from being “free” from disease. Many have noted that cost-effectiveness analyses of potential cures are particularly sensitive to assumptions about the durability of clinical benefit beyond the available short-term data. And others have raised concerns that, without some modification, traditional cost-effectiveness methods would assign an unrealistically high price to a potential cure for conditions such as hemophilia or some cancers currently associated with very high lifetime treatment costs.
Given these issues, ICER will continue to seek input from all stakeholders on the key assumptions that will be used to guide the base case cost-effectiveness analysis in any review. If a potential cure is selected for review, ICER may also consider various novel approaches to address the issues described above. In order to produce reports that can be most useful to inform policy making, ICER may therefore test and implement new methods for calculating value-based prices for potential cures.