Workshop: Health Economic aspects of new treatments for Pulmonary ailments

On April 3, 2025 HEFUU organised a workshop at Svenska Lungkongressen in Uppsala. The workshop introduced Health Economics within the context of pulmonary medicine and presented participants with three specific case studies designed to highlight common future challenges in reimbursement decision based on health-economic evaluations. Examples of the challenges discussed included situations where drugs were only cost-effective for a sub-group of the indicated population at the time of reimbursement, cases where long-term cost-effectiveness was highly uncertain, and scenarios in which evidence of effectiveness was lacking because the drugs had been authorized based on single-arm studies alone.

The congress was hosted by Uppsala University on April 2-4, 2025. The speakers partaking in the HEFUU workshop were PhD Sophie Langenskiöld, Adjunct Professor Peter Lindgren, Professor Niklas Juth, Dr. Torbjörn Linde, Dr. Fredrik Sunborn, Dr. Christina Krantz, Dr. Jens Ellingsen and Professor Erik Grönqvist.

PhD Sophie Langenskiöld opened the workshop, which was kicked off with an introduction to Health Economics by Adjunct Professor Peter Lindgren. Professor Niklas Juth discussed the ethical platform which is enshrined in Swedish Law. Dr. Torbjörn Linde moved on to discuss the pricing of medication in practice. Remaining speakers Dr. Fredrik Sunborn, Dr. Christina Krantz and Dr. Jens Ellingsen each provided a specific example of treatment for pulmonary ailments within the context put forward in the previous presentations. In the concluding interactive activity Professor Erik Grönqvist made the audience prioritize between patients with different disease severity and cost-effective treatment.