1,720,991 research outputs found
Analisi dei consumi di due classi di medicinali biotecnologici (ESA e G-CSF) in cinque Paesi europei.
No full textThe expected benefits of biosimilar drugs (a lower price and a competition effect on originators' price) offer an opportunity to contain the rising trend of the hospital pharmaceutical expenditure. This paper reviews the characteristics of biotechnological products and their regulatory features with the aim to evaluate if and how biosimilars are substituting the originators in the respective markets. Specifically, the study is focused on the two biologics markets ESA and G-CSF, because of their utilization and growth rate. The observation area includes five European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and UK) and the observation period encompasses the early years of the ESA/G-CSF biosimilars marketing in such area (2008-2011). Analytical sales data at package level were collected and converted to IU (ESA) or mcg (G-CSF). While the ESA total market (originators + biosimilars) did decline during the period and in the whole area under investigation (173 billion IUs in 2008 vs 158.1 billion in 2011), the biosimilars market alone soared (from 3.1 billion IUs in 2008 to 14.7 billion in 2011). So, a substitution effect did effectively occur, even if modest in relative terms (the biosimilars share of the total ESA market was only 8.5% in 2011). With reference to ESA biosimilars, the highest growth rate was in Italy and the largest market was in Germany. The overall G-CSF market grew from 2.7 million mcgs in 2008 to 3.4 million in 2011. However, biosimilars alone grew at a much higher speed (from 2.5 thousand mcgs to 432.3 thousand), implying a substitution effect similar to ESA's. G-CSF biosimilars market share in Italy ranked second in the five countries area. The substitution process of originators by biosimilars (at least in the markets, period and area observed in this study) appears relatively slow, mainly because of clinical reasons (only similarity, not therapeutic equivalence with originators, is acknowledged to biosimilars). However, the favorable impact of biosimilars on prices of, and expenditure for, biologic drugs cannot be denied. © 2013 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
Analisi di minimizzazione dei costi della tossina botulinica di tipo A ( Dysport) nel trattamento della spasticità post-ictus in Italia.
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
The costs incurred by patients to get eligibility to PCSK9 treatment and one-year follow-up: the results of the PRIOR Study
Get PDFBackground. Several health care services are required to get eligibility to PCSK9-inhibitors medicines and the follow-up of patients being treated. The ultimate goal is making prescriptions appropriate and monitoring the effects of these drugs. Some recent papers (opinion / consensus documents) highlighted the necessity to make simpler this clinical pathway. Our paper illustrates the cost of this pathway incurred by patients (direct healthcare and non-healthcare costs, productivity losses by patients and their possible care-giver due to the time dedicated to healthcare services).
Methods. The study relied on a retrospective data collection through a structured questionnaire administered to 240 patients, being on treatments with PCSK9-inhibiotrd drugs for at least one year. Patients were recruited in 4 Italian healthcare centres from June 2020 to July 2021.
Results. Recruited patients are 64 years old on average. 64% of patients are males and 36% are actively employed and working. Mean cost incurred by patients amounts to € 926,1. Direct healthcare costs, direct non-healthcare costs and productivity losses equal to € 463,5 (50%), € 136,7 (15%) and € 325,9 (35%) respectively. Healthcare services fully covered by the National Health Service account for 56% of the total. Co-payments are applied to 26% of healthcare services, whereas patients pay the full price for 18% healthcare services.
Discussion. Getting eligibility to PCSK9-inhibitors and managing patients’ follow-up generate important costs incurred by patients. Furthermore, these costs are very different across healthcare centres. We are fully aware that appropriateness of prescriptions and patients’ follow-up are very important. However, simplifying the clinical pathway would bring economic advantages and could make more homogenous the way this pathway is managed by healthcare centres
A budget impact analysis of the VENTANA PD-L1 SP142 immunohistochemistry assay versus the Dako PD-L1 IHC 22C3 assay in patients with advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer treated with atezolizumab in combination with nab-paclitaxel
Get PDFOBJECTIVE: To estimate the budget impact determined by the adoption of two different diagnostic strategies, SP142 assay or 22C3 assay, in the identification (in terms of PD-L1 status) of patients with mTNBC eligible for treatment with atezolizumab in combination with nab-paclitaxel.METHODS: The budget impact analysis (BIA) was conducted using a budget impact model (BIM) considering the Italian National Health Service's (iNHS) perspective. The analysis assessed only the direct medical cost (tissue biopsy, PD-L1 assay, specialist visit, pharmacological treatment with atezolizumab in combination with nab-paclitaxel) of patients with PD-L1 positive mTNBC, and management of the adverse events associated with the pharmacological treatment administered. The BIM also considered the clinical benefits (progression free survival, PFS) resulting from the drug therapy administered on the basis of the results of the post-hoc analysis of the IMpassionl 30 clinical trial. The BIA was conducted over a 1-year time horizon. The median cost per patient in the progression-free state was also calculated. The costs were calculated using the net ex-factory prices (cancer drugs) and regional or national tariffs (tissue biopsy, PD-L1 assay, specialist visit and adverse events management). A sensitivity analysis was conducted to evaluate the base case result.RESULTS: The SP142 assay diagnostic pathway would result in a reduction of the iNHS expenditure of approximately 5.6 million euros (-12%). Almost all of the reduction in iNHS expenditure would be determined by the lower number of patients treated (SP142: 689 patients vs 22C3: 786 patients) with immunotherapy (-(sic) 5,530,871). Compared with 22C3 assay, the SP142 assay shows a cost per PFS month reduction of (sic) 736 ((sic) 7,010 vs (sic) 7,746).CONCLUSIONS: The use of the SP142 assay proved to be cost-effective compared to the 22C3 assay; the SP142 assay can support the choice of the most appropriate cancer drug, maximizing the effectiveness and minimizing the waste of healthcare resources
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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