Managed Care In EU Markets

Health care reforms throughout European Union countries are forecast tocreate growth for managed care, a market which was valued at $198 million in the EU in 1996, according to a new study from Frost & Sullivan.

In the new era of cost containment, drug companies will be required to prove that innovative drugs are genuinely part of the solution, it says. Superficial claims of cost-effectiveness will be inadequate; they will have to be substantiated with health outcomes analysis. Rigorous European data protection laws mean that projects for managed care and disease management programs currently run much more slowly than necessary, it says. Public acceptance of data collection by agencies or companies would allow pilot projects to be completed and approved much more quickly.

Of major concern is how to strike a balance between providing drugmakers with adequate incentives to undertake R&D in an uncertain environment, and handling the monopolistic situation created when a successful patent-protected drug is introduced. F&S says managed care appears to be the way forward, and is the best compromise between state-run efforts which are too bureaucratic, and private health care systems, which are too expensive.