The U.S. health system is distinctly innovative and uniquely expensive.  We spend the most in the world for health care and are no healthier for it.  The American health care system consistently fails to provide high-value care to all patients at a price they can afford. Where other countries have national agencies dedicated to analyzing clinical and economic evidence to determine the cost of care across their health system, the U.S. has no similar function. 

However, increasingly, U.S. health care decision makers are relying on the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) to play this role.  Founded in 2006 and non-profit incorporated in 2013, ICER has become the nation’s non-partisan, independent, go-to-resource for objective evidence about the value of health care in the U.S.  ICER’s appraisals of more than 100 drugs for more than 50 medical conditions, in addition to multiple devices and diagnostics, have demonstrated that rigorous, transparent analysis and application of evidence to clinical effectiveness and cost can align the price of care with the benefit it brings to patients and families in the U.S. Our ultimate goal is to improve access and affordability of treatments while retaining the incentives necessary for future innovation: Fair Price, Fair Access, and Future Innovation.

We are a group of people that is passionate about healthcare and about taking action to improve it. All of our work is data-driven and evidence-based – this is core to our culture.  Our researchers conduct robust analyses of clinical trial data to determine how effective a new drug therapy is compared to the current standard of care, a Once we determine the overall efficacy of a health intervention, that information drives our modeling around fair pricing.

In the US, consequential decisions around prescription drug pricing and patient access have historically been made based on limited evidence and without patients in the room. In confidential negotiations, pharmaceutical companies and health insurers make coverage decisions on access and pricing. ICER’s goal is to bring more transparency to that conversation by 1) using evidence to determine the clinical benefit of health interventions, and 2) ensuring all parties can discuss access and pricing concerns in a public setting. Ultimately, our work is used by pharmaceutical companies and US payers as an independent input into their considerations around pricing and coverage.

Increasingly, patient advocates, physicians, US legislators, and international health technology assessment organizations are also referencing ICER’s work to better understand how we all can better balance fair pricing and fair access.