Bachelor thesis – presented in Milan
Zohaira El Malahi has presented her bachelor thesis on the ISPOR Annual European Congress (International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research) in November in Milan. Her work compared data on the incidence of diseases, which is used in the context of drug assessments for pricing in the German health care system.
El Malahi is a graduate of the Bachelor of Science in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and wrote her thesis in the specialisation field “Pharmamanagement” (supervisor Professor Yvonne-Beatrice Boehler MD, MBA). Her thesis is titled “Epidemiological Data Presented in German Benefit Assessments – A Comparison between Pharmaceutical Companies and G-BA”.
Specifically, she compared data on the incidence of diseases that are treated with drugs newly entering the German market. This information has to be provided by pharmaceutical companies during the German pricing and reimbursement process for drugs. It is then evaluated by; inter alia, the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) – the highest decision-making body of the joint self-government in Germany (The Federal Joint Committee).
El Malahi compared data presented by pharmaceutical companies and G-BA decisions for a total of 147 assessments from 2011 to 2015. Most of these assessments concerned drugs for the therapeutic areas metabolic disorders, oncology and infectious disorders. Overall the mean deviation between companies and G-BA was 39 %. An annual comparison revealed no clearly increasing or decreasing trend. Further analyses on susceptible therapeutic areas and data sources were presented on the congress poster, which is also available online at Epidemiological Data Presented in German Benefi t Assessments – A Comparison between Pharmaceutical Companies and G-BA
From the successful completion of her bachelor thesis including congress experience Zohaira El Malahi draws a positive conclusion: “The effort was worth it - it's an incredibly valuable and motivating experience to present your own work on such a large and international congress and discuss it.”
Congratulations!