New drugs should be judged on “willingness to pay” basis, says leading economist

A leading economist has argued that “willingness to pay” is the best way to judge whether a new drug should be funded.

Peter Zweifel, professor of economics at the University of Zurich, said that the willingness to pay criterion—which assigns a value to health benefits by directly asking members of the public how much they would be prepared to pay to gain a benefit—is a better measure than quality adjusted life years (QALYs), the commonly used measure that combines an estimate of the life years gained from an intervention with a judgment on the quality of these life years.

Speaking at a seminar at the independent Office of Health Economics in London, Professor Zweifel said, “I would argue that the real gold standard in economic …