The contribution of economic evaluation to decision-making in early phases of product development: a methodological and empirical review

Background: Economic evaluation as an integral part of health technology assessment is today mostly applied to established technologies. Evaluating health care innovations in their early states of development has recently attracted attention. However, while it offers a number of benefits, it also holds methodological challenges. Objectives: The aim of our study was to investigate the possible contributions of economic evaluation to the industry?s decision making early in product development and to confront the results with findings from an empirical review of economic assessments using early data or covering emerging technologies. Methods: We conducted an explorative literature research to detect methodological contributions as well as economic evaluations that actually used data from early phases of product development. Complementarily, horizon scanning reports were investigated for emerging technologies that were researched for available economic evaluations. Results: Economic analysis can be beneficially used in early phases of product development for a variety of purposes including early market assessment, R&D portfolio management and first estimations of pricing and reimbursement scenarios. A number of analytical tools available for these purposes have been identified. Numerous empirical works were detected, but most do not disclose any concrete decision context and could not be directly matched with the suggested applications. Conclusions: Industry can benefit from starting economic evaluation early in product development in a variety of ways. R&D efficiency is enhanced, potentially successful products can be identified in time. Empirical evidence suggests that there is still potential left unused.