Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly setting aside funding for research on health economics and outcomes, a study suggests.

         Cutting Edge Information's latest report, entitled 'Health Economics and Outcomes Research: Aligning Clinical and Commercial to Meet Payer Demands and Win Reimbursement', reveals that 59 per cent of US companies now assign a dedicated budget for this purpose.

         This contrasts with just a few years ago, when the majority of teams in this field received indirect funding.
In emerging markets, pharmacoeconomics tends to be funded through teams such as medical affairs, market access and branding.

         Cutting Edge Information said that the growing prevalence of dedicated budgets underlines the increasing importance of health economics in the pharmaceutical industry.

         "Dedicated budgets comprise a large percentage of HEOR funding at most companies," said Michelle Vitko, senior research analyst at Cutting Edge Information.

          "More peripheral functions, such as sales and market research, tend to only contribute a small amount, which was not the case in 2010."