Occam Research Ltd is a boutique consultancy specialising in delivering academic quality research to support value demonstration for the pharmaceutical and device industries.
Insights & updates
The consultation that wasn't
The Department for Health and Social Care recently published its response to a consultation regarding whether ministers should be able to influence the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on its cost-effectiveness threshold. The change is going ahead despite the majority of respondents opposing the move. In a new Substack post, Professor Andrew Briggs and Francis Ruiz argue that the consultation was essentially performative rather than a genuine attempt to gather insight from key stakeholders and warn that the decision will have devastating effects.
Population-level burden-of-disease model for MASH
New research published in PharmacoEconomics – Open presents a population-level burden-of-disease model for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) in the US. The paper, co-authored by Professor Andrew Briggs, reveals that mortality is a greater burden than morbidity for MASH. The analysis also found that the burden of MASH is greater if the disease is acquired earlier in life and higher for women compared to men as women on average live longer lives.
Minimally Important Differences for EQ-5D
Should we estimate minimally important differences (MIDs) for preference-weighted health-related quality of life measures like the EQ-5D?
In a new Substack post, Professor Andrew Briggs makes the case against their estimation. He argues that MIDs are unstable, variable and fundamentally flawed. The post follows a recent publication in Value in Health co-authored by Briggs. It responds to an alternative perspective claiming that MIDs are useful.