PhRMA Foundation Announces Awards of Up to $1 Million for New Value Assessment Initiative

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Foundation announced the launch of its new Value Assessment Initiative, a three-part award program aimed at advancing the ongoing shift toward a value-driven health care system through better evidence and value frameworks.

Despite the emergence of numerous efforts to advance value-driven health care in recent years, the need to develop solutions that reflect patient preferences and real-world clinical practice persists. In addition, many methodological issues remain unsolved. Recognizing these concerns, the PhRMA Foundation aims to encourage the development of innovative, multi-stakeholder-based solutions to current challenges in assessing and measuring value through the Value Assessment Initiative.

"For more than 50 years, the PhRMA Foundation has supported scientists and researchers through grants and fellowships across a number of disciplines to advance new insights and discoveries to help improve our health care system," said Eileen Cannon, president, the PhRMA Foundation. "Evolving our health care system to recognize and reward value is one of the most fundamental issues facing health care stakeholders across the continuum today. This initiative offers an important opportunity to identify and advance new solutions to this pressing, system-wide need."

The initiative includes three award programs:
•Challenge Awards (up to $50,000/grantee) for papers that answer the question: What are transformative strategies to measure or evaluate value of health care interventions that could be implemented to advance a value-driven health care system in the United States?
•Research Awards (up to $100,000/grantee) for proposals to identify and address challenges in approaches to assess the value of medicines and health care services.
•Center of Excellence Awards ($25,000/grantee) for proposals to establish and sustain new collaborative, multi-disciplinary centers that will undertake activities to build evidence and partnerships that can inform value assessment strategies and value-driven decision-making. An additional $500,000 will also be made available through the Foundation for chosen proposals to support the subsequent establishment of a Center.

Interested applicants are encouraged to submit letters of intent by March 24, 2017, for the Challenge Awards and qualified applicants will be notified by April 10, 2017, to proceed with preparing a full application. Letters of intent for the Research Awards and Center of Excellence Awards are due by May 1, 2017, with notifications to qualified applicants slated for June 15, 2017.

Representatives from academia, patient advocacy groups, clinicians and the biopharmaceutical industry convened in October to provide guidance on the scope and focus of the initiative. These representatives serve on the Advisory Committee and as peer reviewers of qualifying applications for all three programs.