Pharmacoeconomics- Costs of Drug Therapy to Healthcare Systems

Pharmacoeconomics is the description and analysis of the costs of drug therapy to healthcare systems and society. Pharmacoeconomics is a sub-discipline of the field of health economics, which itself is a relatively new sub-discipline of economics, only formerly appearing in the economics scientific literature since the 1960s. The importance of pharmacoeconomic information to healthcare decision makers will depend upon the viewpoint from which the analysis is conducted. The two fundamental components of Pharmacoeconomics studies are measures of costs and measures of outcomes that are combined into a quantitative measure or ratio. It can be done using various methods; Cost-minimization analysis (CMA), Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA), Cost-utility analysis (CUA), and Cost-benefit analysis (CBA). The results of pharmaceutical studies give a quantitative measure (cost/outcome achieved) that shows the most efficient allocation of limited resources among two or more competing alternative medications and services or where you can get the most improvement in outcomes for the money that is available to spend on drugs.