Affiliations: Center for Health Outcomes and Pharmacoeconomic
Research, College of Pharmacy, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA | Matrix45, Tucson, AZ, USA
Note: [] Corresponding author: Ivo Abraham, College of Pharmacy,
University of Arizona, 1295 N Martin Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. Tel.: +1
520 626 4425; Fax: +1 520 626 7355; E-mail: abraham@pharmacy.arizona.edu
Abstract: There is an inherent disconnect between the global-level endeavor of
innovating pharmacotherapeutics and the (still) national-level of
decision-making about access to innovation. In this paper, we argue that
rational pharmacoeconomic policy should not be at the national, neither at the
supranational, but at the transnational level: based on the relative similarity
of countries in terms of their per capita health care spending. The 2010 OECD
Health database, complemented as necessary with secondary data sources to
substitute for missing data, was used to compile an analysis sample of all but
two OECD countries (Chile and Greece) with data through 2007. We first
established the overall divergence of, and heterogeneity among, countries in
terms of 2007 per capita total and pharmaceutical health care spending as
relative proxies of pharmacoeconomic policy. Next, we applied cluster analytic
methods to identify OECD member countries that are similar in terms of 2007 per
capita pharmaceutical and total health care expenditures, and the ratio of both.
