Pharmacoeconomics

How to Best Define Target Populations of Medicines in View of Their Coverage by the National Health Insurance Scheme?

¹ Service Évaluation Économique et de Santé Publique, Haute Autorité de Santé, Saint-Denis La Plaine Cedex, France
² Hôpital Saint Jacques, Besançon, France
³ IRIS, Groupe Servier, Courbevoie, France

Correspondance and offprints : Patricia Maillère, Groupe Servier, 6 place des Pléiades, 92415 Courbevoie Cedex, France. E-mail: patricia.maillere@fr.netgrs.com

Received: 3 May 2010
Accepted: 8 June 2010

Abstract

The target population of a medicine may include different populations that may partially overlap including the population that has been evaluated in the clinical trials, the population for which the medicine provides an actual benefit (SMR), that for which the drug provides an improvement of the actual benefit (ASMR), etc. The definition of the target population in both qualitative and quantitative terms has key public health and economic implications. Recommendations are made to shed light on the definitions, to clarify the requests of the public decision makers and to improve the methods and the sources allowing the quantification of target populations.