Sold to the NHS: making business decisions for new medical devices

The medical sector is different from other sectors in at least two ways. Firstly, because the statistics of illness are kept, giving a clear indication of the size of potential markets for technologies that address a given illness. Second, healthcare providers are increasingly seeking to understand the value-for-money proposition that the technology they purchase represents. Health Economics offers a quantitative way to estimate such value and this course focuses on simple methods to undertake the economic evaluation and then ways to connect this to business decisions; such as whether to invest in a new product or not.

The course focuses on accessible methods to identify the commercial potential of medical devices. The methods and analysis presented will be suitable in the following situations.

• Application at the conceptual stage when a company must decide whether to pursue an idea;
• Application to the stage when the product is about to be placed on the market;
• Accounting for uncertainty can help to decide when to invest further in a product.

Not all forms of risk are covered by this theory, but it does link the uncertainty a business carries forward to the strength of the statistics from clinical and other trials that the product may have undergone.

The course will provide a reasonable amount of background information so that delegates will be able to take away enough theory and supporting material to apply these methods for themselves.

 Presentations include:

•  Measuring clinical effectiveness and safety.
• Health economics for devices - making a submission to NICE.
• The Headroom Method.
• Extension of the theory to include pricing and some investment decisions.

 It will provide you with:

•  A way to assess the value of new devices at different stages along the development pipeline;
• Background theory on medical devices assessment and the measures applied;
• A consistent understanding of the basics of making a value-based business case to the NHS.

 Who should attend:

•  Industry and investors seeking informed product development decisions based on User needs assessment;
• Marketing Managers seeking to differentiate products based on cost-effectiveness;
• Sales Managers seeking to articulate the value proposition of innovative products. 

Attendees will receive:

• A goodie bag including copies of the MATCH Guide "Evaluating Health Devices" and the MATCH Workbook "Business Decisions For New Medical Devices - The Headroom Approach"

The course will provide you with a mix of practical skills and capabilities for reaching users and also introduce you to ways of thinking that will ensure you are able to present your findings coherently to those inside your organisation and to make the case robustly to those outside.

 Speakers Profiles

Professor Richard Lilford: Richard Lilford has over ten years experience as Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and over five years as Regional Director of R&D in the UK. Currently he is Professor of Clinical Epidemiology in the University of Birmingham. He additionally holds the position of Vice-Dean for Applied Health Research. He directs the NIHR Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research & Care for Birmingham and Black Country (CLAHRC-BBC); a programme funded by EPSRC under the Multidisciplinary Assessment of Technology Centre for Healthcare (MATCH); and many other research grants. He also has an extensive research portfolio in Clinical Trials, Decision Analysis and Bayesian Statistics.

Mr Alan Girling: Alan is a statistician with wide interests in statistical methodology and in the applications of mathematics and statistics in Health Research. After studying Mathematics at Cambridge University, he worked first as a researcher in statistics, and subsequently taught for many years in a university mathematics department. He joined the MATCH collaboration in 2004 as a senior research fellow based in the Department of Public Health, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Birmingham, UK. He has since worked on a number of projects around the development and evaluation of medical products, particularly devices. His primary interests lie in the application of health economic modelling to elucidate the value of devices under development.

 www.match.ac.uk