Pharmacoeconomic research status and issues in clinical development of antimicrobial agents

Questionnaires assessing the status, pharmacoeconomic research and the use of research results in Japan were sent to physicians and dentists belonging to the Japanese Society of Chemotherapy who are involved with clinical studies on antimicrobial agents and to pharmaceutical companies belonging to the Japan Antibiotics Research Association who are involved in the development of antimicrobial agents. The response rate were 58% for physicians and dentists (185 out of 317) and 65% for pharmaceutical companies (31 out of 48). The topic of pharmacoeconomics was of interest to 77% of the physicians and dentists who responded mainly because of its impact on the development of manuals for the use of antimicrobial agents, its impact on total medical expenditure in Japan, information on medical facility management and for making decisions regarding formulary control, etc. In contrast, only 23% of the pharmaceutical companies who responded had studied the pharmacoeconomics of antimicrobial agents. Most of the respondents regarded pharmacoeconomic parameters, such as the curative period for infectious diseases, hospital/ICU stay and patient QOL, to be of primary importance. Respondents also saw a need for pharmacoeconomic research on innovative antimicrobial agents, drugs allowing new administration methods and other types of drugs using the above parameters as a measure. We found that physicians, dentists, and pharmaceutical companies were well aware of the need to study the pharmacoeconomics of antimicrobial agents, but that several issues were hindering the implementation of studies, including guidelines for obtaining informed consent in pharmacoeconomics studies, procedures for concluding contracts for clinical studies, the lack of pharmacoeconomic research guidelines, and the scarcity of specialists in this area.