BOSTON, Oct. 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Policy Analysis Inc. (PAI), a Boston-based health-economics consultancy, today announced that the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) will expand its use of PAI's new web-based economic modeling platform, hēRo3 (http://hero3models.info/), in its reviews of the clinical and economic value of prescription drugs, medical tests, and other healthcare interventions. ICER's adoption of hēRo3 follows extensive testing by the organization.

The hēRo3℠ Modeling Platform lets users build cost-effectiveness models for new medicines online, and then share them securely with others as private "live" web apps. ICER plans to expand use of the platform to support its organization's internal modeling and to further validate models developed by ICER's external partners.

ICER, which is best known as the nation's independent watchdog on drug pricing, has been testing hēRo3 since January 2018, culminating in the organization's use of the new platform for modeling in one of its recent evidence reviews. As part of this review, ICER also used a secure hēRo3 web portal to share its model with manufacturers instead of sending them a copy of the model in Microsoft Excel, which is another innovative feature of the platform.

"In addition to saving us substantial time that we otherwise would spend building models in Excel, we think that hēRo3 will help us advance our ongoing initiative to further modeling transparency," said Richard Chapman, Ph.D., Director of Health Economics for ICER.

"We approached ICER very early in the development of our new platform, since they are unquestionably the most important and influential health-technology assessment group in the U.S.," said Gerry Oster, Ph.D., Managing Partner of PAI and a leading health-economics expert. "ICER's decision to expand its use of hēRo3 confirms our belief in the needs our new modeling platform meets, and in its ability to reduce the time needed to conduct rigorous economic evaluations of new medical treatments."

About hēRo3

hēRo3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l7zR1CZAmk&feature=youtu.be) is a new, secure, web-based, modeling platform that was the product of an 18-month development initiative between PAI and Amgen, Merck, and Novartis; the latter 3 companies provided initial seed money to PAI for the development of this new application. hēRo3 allows users to build cost-effectiveness models online, and then run and share them as private "live" web apps. All calculations in hēRo3 are performed using an open-source modeling package in the programming language, R, that runs on cloud-based servers. By automating many tasks that are usually programmed from scratch, hēRo3 significantly reduces the amount of time it takes to develop cost-effectiveness models for new drugs. The models are often used by manufacturers to provide formal evidence to decision makers about the value of new prescription drugs, medical tests, and other interventions; they also are used by insurers and healthcare authorities in their deliberations about whether to cover new drugs, and how much to pay manufacturers for them.

About the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER)

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) (https://icer-review.org/) is an independent and non-partisan research organization that objectively evaluates the clinical and economic value of prescription drugs, medical tests, and other health care and health care delivery innovations. Founded in 2006, ICER conducts rigorous analyses of all clinical data and publicly convenes key stakeholders--including patients, doctors, life science companies, private insurers, and the government--to translate this evidence into policy decisions that lead to a more effective, efficient, and just health care system.

About Policy Analysis Inc. (PAI)

Policy Analysis Inc. (www.pai2.com) is a 45-year old, independent, health-economics consultancy, located in Brookline, MA, that is an industry leader in the fields of pharmacoeconomics, outcomes research, quality-of-life assessment, pharmacoepidemiology, and health technology assessment.

Contact:

Daniel McIntyre
Publick House LLC
(617) 716-9107
dan@publickhousegroup.com

SOURCE Policy Analysis Inc.

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