IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0312577.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of financial incentives promoting biosimilar products in oncology: A quasi-experimental study using administrative data

Author

Listed:
  • Hisashi Itoshima
  • Daisuke Takada
  • Etsu Goto
  • Noriko Sasaki
  • Susumu Kunisawa
  • Yuichi Imanaka

Abstract

Background: Biosimilars have the potential to save a significant amount of money in cancer treatment costs. However, barriers exist in the adoption of biosimilar products. Japan introduced a new health policy in 2022 to promote the use of biosimilars in oncology by offering financial incentives to eligible hospitals. This study aims to examine the association between these financial incentives and prescription patterns. Methods: The study analyzed Diagnosis Procedure Combination (DPC) data to assess the impact of the new health policy on the use of biosimilar products in oncology. The policy provided an additional fee for hospitals using biosimilar products. The study included patients with specific types of cancer and analyzed the proportion of monthly biosimilar prescriptions using the number of prescriptions of reference and biosimilar products. A generalized synthetic control method was used for analysis. Results: From April 2020 to March 2023, the study involved 27,737 patients in 114 hospitals, with 63 eligible hospitals receiving financial incentives. The average number of prescriptions of the drugs (rituximab, trastuzumab, and bevacizumab) increased gradually in both eligible and ineligible hospitals. The financial incentives were associated with a significant increase in the proportion of biosimilar product prescriptions, with a monthly increase of 0.092 per month (95% CI, 0.040–0.145) [9.2%, 95% CI, 4.0–14.5] compared to ineligible hospitals. Conclusion: Our study indicates that providing financial incentives to hospitals to utilize biosimilar products increased their prescriptions. Japan’s recent health policy of moderate financial incentives is an effective approach to increasing prescriptions of biosimilar products.

Suggested Citation

  • Hisashi Itoshima & Daisuke Takada & Etsu Goto & Noriko Sasaki & Susumu Kunisawa & Yuichi Imanaka, 2024. "The impact of financial incentives promoting biosimilar products in oncology: A quasi-experimental study using administrative data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(11), pages 1-14, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0312577
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0312577
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0312577
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0312577&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0312577?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xu, Yiqing, 2017. "Generalized Synthetic Control Method: Causal Inference with Interactive Fixed Effects Models," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(1), pages 57-76, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maximiliano Marzetti & Rok Spruk, 2023. "Long-Term Economic Effects of Populist Legal Reforms: Evidence from Argentina," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(1), pages 60-95, March.
    2. Kyeongmin Yum & Byungjoon Yoo, 2024. "Enhancing online reviews: exploring the impact of characteristic-based review system on customer engagement for offline sellers," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Davide Viviano & Jelena Bradic, 2019. "Synthetic learner: model-free inference on treatments over time," Papers 1904.01490, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    4. Irene Botosaru & Bruno Ferman, 2019. "On the role of covariates in the synthetic control method," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 22(2), pages 117-130.
    5. Jan Bruha & Jaromir Tonner, 2018. "An Exchange Rate Floor as an Instrument of Monetary Policy: An Ex-Post Assessment of the Czech Experience," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 68(6), pages 537-549, December.
    6. Samba Diop & Simplice A. Asongu & Vanessa S. Tchamyou, 2021. "Mitigating the Macroeconomic Impact of Severe Natural Disasters in Africa: Policy Synergies," Working Papers 21/094, European Xtramile Centre of African Studies (EXCAS).
    7. Pekka Malo & Juha Eskelinen & Xun Zhou & Timo Kuosmanen, 2024. "Computing Synthetic Controls Using Bilevel Optimization," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 64(2), pages 1113-1136, August.
    8. Lüth, Hendrik, 2021. "Reassessing Car Scrappage Schemes in Selected OECD Countries: A Synthetic Control Method Application," Working Paper 190/2021, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg.
    9. Wilmer Martínez-Rivera & Thomaz Carvalhaes & Petar Jevtić & T. Agami Reddy, 2023. "A treatment-effect model to quantify human dimensions of disaster impacts: the case of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 116(2), pages 2033-2068, March.
    10. Julia Levine & Stephan Seiler, 2023. "Identifying State Dependence in Brand Choice: Evidence from Hurricanes," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(5), pages 934-957, September.
    11. Andrii Melnychuk, 2024. "Synthetic Controls with spillover effects: A comparative study," Papers 2405.01645, arXiv.org.
    12. Qili Wang & Liangfei Qiu & Wei Xu, 2024. "Informal Payments and Doctor Engagement in an Online Health Community: An Empirical Investigation Using Generalized Synthetic Control," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 706-726, June.
    13. Alloush, Mo & Bloem, Jeffrey R., 2022. "Neighborhood violence, poverty, and psychological well-being," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    14. Benjamin Hansen & Drew McNichols, 2020. "Information and the Persistence of the Gender Wage Gap: Early Evidence from California's Salary History Ban," NBER Working Papers 27054, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Hao, Shiming, 2021. "True structure change, spurious treatment effect? A novel approach to disentangle treatment effects from structure changes," MPRA Paper 108679, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Sviták, Jan & Tichem, Jan & Haasbeek, Stefan, 2021. "Price effects of search advertising restrictions," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    17. Xiong, Ruoxuan & Pelger, Markus, 2023. "Large dimensional latent factor modeling with missing observations and applications to causal inference," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(1), pages 271-301.
    18. Samba Diop & Simplice A. Asongu & Vanessa S. Tchamyou, 2021. "The Macroeconomic Impact of Recent Political Conflicts in Africa: Generalized Synthetic Counterfactual Evidence," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 21/060, African Governance and Development Institute..
    19. Girma, Sourafel & Paton, David, 2022. "Is assisted suicide a substitute for unassisted suicide?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    20. Tomasz Serwach, 2023. "The European Union and within‐country income inequalities. The case of the new member states," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(7), pages 1890-1939, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0312577. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.