RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC -- (Marketwire) -- 01/07/09 -- Recessionary times put tremendous pressure on everyone -- consumers, companies, governments -- to spend less. All spending is scrutinized. Even the seemingly recession-proof pharmaceutical industry cannot escape this type of scrutiny.

For example, Celgene's multiple myeloma drug, Revlimid, has drawn much criticism for its $260 per pill price tag, which equates to more than $90,000 per year to treat a single patient. Even in times of growth, pharmaceutical manufacturers struggle to justify such costs for prescription drugs to consumers and insurers. In the midst of the current recession, payor groups are turning up the heat on big pharma to deliver more robust pharmacoeconomic and quality-of-life data as a condition of formulary access and reimbursement approval, according to a new report, "Outcomes-Based Pharmaceutical Pricing: Meeting Stakeholder Needs" (http://www.PharmaPricingStrategy.com), from Cutting Edge Information.

"Governments and third-party payors are requiring drug makers to deliver more robust health outcomes data to inform their reimbursement decision-making processes," says Elio Evangelista, Cutting Edge Information research manager. "It is difficult to comprehend, but apparently you can put a price on someone's health. The case of Revlimid may not have helped matters either; it has definitely become a two-way street in which payor groups are pushing back to get proof that new drugs deliver marked improvements over existing products."

A detailed health outcomes analysis can be one of the most convincing ways of proving a drug's effectiveness. "Outcomes-Based Pharmaceutical Pricing: Meeting Stakeholder Needs" offers an in-depth look at health outcomes studies. Loaded with primary and secondary research, the report offers guidelines and timelines to help any company perform the best health outcomes study possible. Download a free brochure at http://www.PharmaPricingStrategy.com

The report contains 400+ metrics, and data focus on pricing teams' structures, phase-by-phase pricing processes and methodology, and spending and staffing resources. Metrics include the following:

--  Resource support, innovative versus me-too drugs
--  Cross-functional involvement in pricing decisions
--  Share of companies with dedicated pricing departments
--  Lifecycle entry and exit points for functions involved in the pricing
    process
--  2008 pricing budgets and headcounts, by company size
--  2008 headcounts broken down by geographic market and by company size
    

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