Such an agency could commission comparative studies to determine which drugs are most effective for a particular disease, which are most cost-effective, and conduct independent safety investigations.
For instance, for flight anxiety it may seem evident that it would be more cost-effective to conduct VR-enhanced exposure than buy a plane ticket for in vivo exposure.
The availability of state test data has made it simpler and more cost-effective to conduct the sort of research that can produce strong (what researchers refer to as internally valid) and generalizable evidence.
If the population EVPI represented in figure 4 exceeds the expected costs of additional research, then it is potentially cost-effective to conduct further research.
If the population EVPPI for a subset of parameters exceeds the expected costs of additional research, then it is potentially cost-effective to conduct further research to estimate those parameters.
If the population EVSI of a proposed trial is greater than the costs of the trial, then it is cost-effective to conduct the trial to address the uncertainty.
It is cost-effective to conduct the trial to address the uncertainty if the population expected value of sample information of a proposed trial at a given sample size is greater than the costs of the trial.
This can be thought of as the maximum that the health care system should be willing to pay for additional evidence to inform the decision in the future and thus is an upper bound on the value of conducting further research, ie, if the population EVPI exceeds the expected costs of additional research, then it is potentially cost-effective to conduct further research.
Given the dramatic costs of nursing home care, and of informal care for patients with disability even if they are able to return home, it may be highly cost-effective to conduct brief early interventions to prevent rather than remediate new disability.
The maximum cost at which it would be cost-effective to conduct a trial with 100 patients in each arm is only £1.08 million ($1.56 million) if there were a low estimated incidence (of 3.5 per 100,000 population per year) of eligible patients, but would be £12.67 million ($18.37 million) if there were a high estimated incidence (of 40.8 per 100,000 population per year).
It was noted that India is cost-effective for conducting clinical trials given its huge population, diverse genetic pool, wide range of diseases, drug-naïve population, trained medical and technical manpower, and good hospitals for undertaking such trials.
