Pharmacoeconomics, 2020
PREFACE
The role of economic knowledge for health professionals is increasing due to limited resources and facilities in health care. The increasing number of drugs and new health technologies in the pharmaceutical and health market is not a guarantee of increasing effectiveness of drug therapy. In the formation of patterns of drug use, economic factors often turn out to be leading.
Pharmacoeconomics
emerged as a scientific discipline in the early 1980s; and in regulatory practice it began to be applied from the mid-1990s. Its role will increasingly grow given the increasing competitiveness of the pharmaceutical market and the growing need to provide evidence to regulatory institutions. More and more people and institutions will ask themselves the question "How much do we pay for drugs and what do we get in return?" and "Do the results justify the costs incurred?".
The current textbook
is consistent with the training program for pharmacy students, in the discipline "Pharmacoeconomics", as well as for SDO specialists in "Organization and economics of distribution and pharmacy practice", and in "Organization and economics of pharmaceutical production", but can use by all health professionals interested in evaluating the economic; social and medical characteristics of drug use.
The textbook is an attempt to summarize the authors' published monographs, textbooks, articles; examining from a pharmaceutical perspective the economic aspects of the use of medicines by health professionals and the public; as well as to determine the place of pharmacists in conducting and evaluating the pharmacoeconomic characteristics of drug therapy.
This fourth revised edition includes new developments, especially in the field of methods used in pharmacoeconomics, as well as the rules of good research practice in their application, which are illustrated with Bulgarian studies. The sections on the regulatory practice in Bulgaria and Europe have been supplemented with clarification of the application of the methods of health economics and pharmacoeconomics in the evaluation of health technologies.
COVID19
This year the world was faced with a huge test – that of the COVID19 epidemic. This trial raised many questions for those involved in science, especially questions related to the ethics of medical care and human relations. The current health care system has shown that it cannot provide fair access to treatment for all European citizens, and this is a major criterion for allocating scarce resources in health care. Health authorities put questions about the cost-effectiveness of new therapies above everything else, but it is necessary to think in the direction of how to measure the social and ethical burden of diseases, how to direct people to achieve mutual help in difficult conditions, and not only to analyze the costs because the social cost is high. The scarcity of resources is an economic law and is inevitable, but the scarcity of human relations is not. In these difficult times, will, spirit, nobility and humanity are needed.
Prof. Genka Petrova, Ph.D
