Undergraduate courses
The Center teaches the Pharmacoeconomics course to fourth-year pharmacy students from the spring semester of 2021 and to medical students from 2024 . The lectures are given in Hungarian and English languages as well.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Practice-oriented teaching of basic health- and pharmacoeconomic knowledge for students in line with international educational practice, enables them interpreting and determining the cost-effectiveness of health technologies (including pharmaceuticals), and understanding the principles of pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement.
GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION:
COURSE OUTLINE
Health technology assessment (HTA) is the evaluation of health technologies (including pharmaceuticals) from different perspectives (incl. clinical, economic, organizational, ethical etc.) to support health policy decision making at institutional-, and macro (i.e national) level. Practice-oriented teaching of basic health- and pharmacoeconomic knowledge for students, in line with international educational practice, enables them interpreting and determining the cost-effectiveness of health technologies (including pharmaceuticals), and understanding the principles of pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement.
Competencies acquired through the completion of the course: Command of key health economic terms, including: health technology assessment (HTA), steps of economic evaluations, measurement of health outcomes incl. health related quality of life, measurement of costs, pricing and reimbursement of pharmaceuticals, pharmaceutical policy.
|
Class |
Topic |
Lecturer |
|
Week 1 45 min |
Introduction, requirements
Health care market and market failures, Elements of health care system, Financing health care |
András Inotai
Balázs Babarczy |
|
Week 3 45 min |
Pharmacoeconomics, Health Technology Assessment, Classification of economic evaluations |
Zoltán Kaló |
|
Week 5 45 min |
Steps of health economic evaluation I – Evidence synthesis – methods&tools for review-based thesis,
Health outcome measurement (quality of life, utility, quality adjusted life years) |
Kristóf Gyöngyösi,
András Inotai |
|
Week 7 45 min |
Steps of health economic evaluation II – Measuring costs, decision rule (threshold, multicriteria decision analysis) |
Balázs Nagy |
|
Week 9 45 min |
Health economic modelling (classification, applicability) Blended learning class |
Balázs Nagy |
|
Week 11 45 min |
Pricing of original and generic medicines |
András Inotai |
|
Week 13 45 min |
Pharmaceutical reimbursement system, cost control techniques |
András Inotai |
|
Evaluation Week 14 |
Test type exam |
|
EVALUATION/PERFORMANCE CONTROL
Knowledge testing during the semester:
NA
Requirements of the signature:
Regular attendance is recommended; however, it is not mandatory for semester acceptance. No attendance sheet will be used. Audio recordings of the classes will be available throughout the semester and will be shared on Moodle for students to make up for absences. No need to justify absence. However, students are incentivised for face-to-face participation at classes. At the end of each class, students are challenged with 2-3 quiz questions (6 for the blended learning class), to be answered based on the knowledge of that class. Filling these questions is facultative, however students with a 70% or better good reponse rate receive automatically +30% points in addition to their classroom exam performance at the end of the semester. Incetive is only applicable for face-to-face participants.
Type of performance control:
Practical course mark
Form of performance control in the examination period (written, oral, written and oral):
Test-type written (Moodle based) classroom exam of the entire semester curricula at week 14 (according to semester schedule), opportunity for correction: week 1 of exam period. Exam schedule to be disclosed during the first contact class. Duration 45 mins/40 test type questions incl. true/false, simple choice, multiple correct answer quiz question. Min. 50% is required to pass. Detailed technical information and test tutorial will be shared on Moodle. Application of AI by students during exam: not allowed.
READING MATERIAL
List of teaching materials: (List of textbooks, hand-outs, scripts, etc.)
slide decks and audio recordings of the classes (available throughout the semester), compulsory and recommended reading materials, test tutorial for the entire semester curricula. All materials are uploaded to Moodle and assigned to be-weekly classes.
Essential Pharmacoeconomics & Health Policy Terms for semester-end classroom exam
- Health Market, Financing
- Perfect competition
- Market failure
- Monopolistic situation
- Information asymmetry
- Experience rating
- Moral hazard
- Supplier induced demand
- Externalities
- Pooling of funds
- Fund raising / collection of revenues
- Purchasing of services
- Insurance premiums
- Medical savings accounts
- Out of pocket payments
- Tax
- Fee-for-service
- Fixed salary
- Territorial / per capita payment
- HTA, Economic Evaluation
- Health Technology Assessment (HTA)
- Single Technology Assessment
- Multiple Technology Assessment
- HTA submission
- Critical appraisal
- Public HTA office
- Opportunity cost
- Cost-effectiveness
- Affordability
- Evidence-based health policy
- Transparency
- Accountability
- Evidence Synthesis, Quality of Life
- Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs)
- Health-related quality of life
- Generic health-related quality of life measures
- Specific health-related quality of life measures
- Utility
- Direct utility measurement
- Indirect utility measurement
- Rating Scale (RS)
- Time trade-off (TTO)
- Standard gamble (SG)
- EuroQoL EQ-5D
- EQ-5D Index
- EQ-VAS
- Mapping
- Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY)
- Scientific evidence
- Evidence generation
- Real-world data
- Real-world evidence
- In vivo
- In vitro
- In silico
- Randomization
- Blinding
- Clinical trials
- Placebo
- Systematic literature review
- Meta-analysis
- Evidence synthesis
- Quantitative synthesis
- Cost, Decision Rules
- Unit cost
- Cost-effectiveness analysis
- Cost-benefit analysis
- Cost-utility analysis
- Cost analysis
- Discounting
- Time preference
- Incremental cost effectiveness ratio (ICER)
- Dominance
- Dominated intervention
- Willingness to pay threshold
- Multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA)
- Third party payer’s perspective
- Marginal cost
- Fixed cost
- Health care costs
- Microcosting
- Modelling
- Decision tree model
- Markov model
- Markov cycles
- Health economic model
- Piggy-back economic evaluation
- Naturalistic economic evaluation
- Time horizon
- Transition probabilities
- Strategic Pricing
- Pharmaceutical expenditure
- Ex-factory price
- Wholesale price
- Retail price
- Transfer price
- Value added tax (VAT)
- Drug utilisation
- Generic pharmaceuticals
- Originator medicine
- Patent protection
- Strategic pricing
- Value-based price
- International price referencing
- Differential value
- Net present value (NPV)
- Research and development (R&D)
- Pharmacovigilance
- Comparator
- Parallel trade
- Cost Sharing, Reimbursement
- Reimbursement policy
- Coverage of pharmaceuticals
- Cost sharing
- Co-payment
- Reimbursed amount
- Transparency Directive (89/105/EEC)
- Generic medicines
- Bioequivalence
- Internal (generic) reference pricing
- Reference pricing group
- Biosimilar medicines
- Pharmacological class (ATC)
- Substitution
- Narrow therapeutic window medicines
- Pharmacokinetic parameters
- INN-based prescribing
- International (external) reference pricing
Additional recommended reading:
- Drummond: Methods for the Economic evaluation of the health care programmes. Oxford University Press 2005
Full course description can be downloaded:
https://semmelweis.hu/hta/files/2024/08/GYTK_UJ_Pharmacoeconomics_GYKETE131G1A_IA.docx
https://semmelweis.hu/hta/files/2024/08/884_MD_Intro_Pharmacoeconomics_ENG.pdf
FEEDBACK OF STUDENTS FOR THE LECTURERS OF PHARMACOECONOMICS (OMHV):
2020/21/II:
Feedback of students for the lecturers of Pharmacoeconomics (OMHV):
Pharmacoeconomics_GYETEFOAG1A
Action plan can be downloaded: Action plan_2021
2021/22/I:
Feedback of students for the lecturers of Pharmacoeconomics (OMHV):
Pharmacoeconomics_GYETEFOAG1A
Action plan can be downloaded: Action plan_2022
2022/23/I:
Feedback of students for the lecturers of Pharmacoeconomics (OMHV):
Introduction to Pharmacoeconomics (practice) – GYKETE089G1A
Action plan can be downloaded: Action plan_2023
Feedback of students for the lecturers of Pharmacoeconomics (OMHV):
Launching OMHV survey for GYKETE131G1A was failed for reasons beyond our control.
2024/25/I:
Feedback of students for the lecturers of Pharmacoeconomics (OMHV):
https://semmelweis.hu/hta/files/2025/04/Farmakookonomia_gyakorlat_GYKETE131G1A.pdf
Action plan can be downloaded:
https://semmelweis.hu/hta/files/2025/04/Action-plan_2025_03_14.pdf