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Canadian Guidelines for Economic Evaluation of Pharmaceuticals

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Summary

In 1994, p]Canada became the second country to release national guidelines for the economic evaluation of pharmaceuticals. The guidelines were developed over a period of 18 months through an elaborate process of broad consultation with a wide variety of relevant stakeholders. The intent of the guidelines is to provide guidance to doers and users of studies, by laying out the general ‘state of the art’ regarding methods, and by providing specific methodological advice on many matters. The aim is to improve the scientific quality and integrity of studies, and to enhance consistency and comparability across studies.

This article presents the Canadian guidelines, both in summary and in detail. Because the techniques of economic evaluation are widely applicable beyond pharmaceuticals, the guidelines will be of interest to researchers and decision makers in all fields of healthcare. Because the methods are not country specific, the guidelines will be of interest to those in other countries as well as in Canada.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, McMaster University, 1200 Main Street West, R. 3H1C, Hamilton, Ontario, L8N 3Z5, Canada

    George W. Torrance

  2. Centre for Evaluation of Medicines, St Joseph’s Hospital, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    George W. Torrance

  3. Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    George W. Torrance

  4. Department of Management Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    George W. Torrance

  5. Health Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    David Blaker

  6. Division of General Internal Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, The Toronto Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Allan Detsky

  7. Groupe de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Sante (GRIS), University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Wendy Kennedy

  8. Glaxo-Wellcome, Kirkland, Quebec, Canada

    Francois Schubert

  9. Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Francois Schubert

  10. Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Devidas Menon

  11. Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Peter Tugwell

  12. Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Richard Konchak

  13. Nova Scotia Department of Health, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

    Eleanor Hubbard

  14. Ontario Ministry of Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Theresa Firestone

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  1. George W. Torrance
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  4. Wendy Kennedy
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  9. Eleanor Hubbard
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  10. Theresa Firestone
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Torrance, G.W., Blaker, D., Detsky, A. et al. Canadian Guidelines for Economic Evaluation of Pharmaceuticals. Pharmacoeconomics 9, 535–559 (1996). https://doi.org/10.2165/00019053-199609060-00008

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.2165/00019053-199609060-00008

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