Measuring the cost-effectiveness of treatments for people with Multiple Sclerosis: beyond quality-adjusted life-years

Background - It is a familiar story. A promising Multiple Sclerosis (MS) treatment clears the three regulatory hurdles of safety, quality and efficacy, only to fall at the fourth: cost-effectiveness. This has led to concerns about the validity of the measures typically used to quantify treatment effects in cost-effectiveness analyses and in 2012, in the United Kingdom, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence called for an improvement in the cost-effectiveness framework for assessing MS treatments. Objective and Methods - This review describes what is meant by cost-effectiveness in health/social care funding decision-making, and usual practice for assessing treatment benefits. Results - We detail the use of the quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) in resource allocation decisions, and set out limitations of this approach in the context of MS. Conclusion - We conclude by highlighting methodological and policy developments which should aid addressing these limitations.