PRESS RELEASE: IVI Selects Pharmerit to Construct Foundation of Major Depressive Disorder Value Assessment Model

Health Economics Experts to Work with IVI-convened Advisory Group to Assess and Determine Model Inputs

October 20, 2020 — Alexandria, VA — The Innovation and Value Initiative (IVI)— a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the science, practice, and use of value assessment in healthcare—today announced it has selected Pharmerit – an OPEN Health Company, as a partner to build IVI’s recently announced Open-Source Value Project major depressive disorder (MDD) value assessment model.

IVI’s first-of-its-kind value assessment model assessing pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions will be informed by a multi-stakeholder Advisory Group comprised of patients, employers, payers, clinicians, researchers, and model developers. Their insights will help inform the model’s scope, development, validation, and application. This novel approach to model construction tests how such an engagement approach can improve the credibility and relevance of the models.

Pharmerit will work with the Advisory Group and IVI researchers to assess the relevance, feasibility, and priority of all suggested inputs and incorporate those insights into model specifications. Ultimately, Pharmerit, IVI, and the Advisory Group will jointly work to build an open-source MDD model that can be freely accessed to conduct localized value assessments. As with all IVI value assessment models, the OSVP MDD model will feature customizable simulation capabilities incorporating both cost-effectiveness analysis and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis approaches.

“Major Depressive Disorder is a serious and highly prevalent medical condition with significant health and economic consequences to individuals, their families and society. Despite decades of evidence and a variety of treatment interventions, we still lack clear understanding about the optimal treatment sequences,” said Jennifer Bright, Executive Director, IVI. “IVI’s work, guided by our Advisory Group’s vital input, is a timely opportunity to identify and clarify value factors important to patients, payers, employers, and clinicians, and to improve the discussion about optimal treatments and resource use for this common condition.”

The COVID pandemic has heightened the importance of understanding the value, especially with patient perspectives included, of different MDD interventions and their sequencing. According to a recent paper published in the Journal of American Medical Association, Americans are reporting symptoms of depression three times more than they were before the pandemic, making informed therapeutic sequencing choices even more important now and in the future.

Pharmerit – an OPEN Health Company, is a global leader in health economics and outcomes research, has significant experience in economic modeling, real-world database analysis, evidence generation, market access and communications. Their collaborative research teams also have significant experience examining value across MDD therapies.
“The Pharmerit team is truly excited to partner with IVI on this incredibly important and timely initiative in MDD. By bringing together a cross-functional and multidisciplinary team, we hope to identify key value drivers and address multi-stakeholder questions about optimizing MDD therapies to ultimately improve patient outcomes,” said Jennifer Stephens, Partner and Clinical Director, Pharmerit – an OPEN Health Company.

Get the press release here.