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Medicines may only comprise a small portion of health budgets in Europe, but the relative growth in expenditure on drugs has meant that they are the subject of a variety of cost-cutting measures.

Health Technology Assessments, evidence based medicine and so-called 'rational use of medicines' are increasingly shaping prescription policies and the availability of drugs within government formularies.

One emerging idea is Value-Based Pricing, which claims to combine giving pharmaceutical manufacturers a just reward with evaluations of a product's real benefit to patients.

Jacob Arfwedson, the new director of CNE's Health Forum, will review the pressing issues of healthcare budgets in the context of this trade-off between innovation and budget constraints.

• Who should evaluate the relative effectiveness of new products and therapies?
• How does patient empowerment fit in? Is HTA consistent with patient needs?
• Can VBP work?
• And how is this affected by governments' ever-greater concern with cost-containment and meeting budget targets?

Related CNE publications and events:
	Containing Costs or Restraining Health Care? by Jacob Arfwedson and Peter Pitts Download paper (265K)

Jacob Arfwedson is a CNE Senior Fellow and Director of the CNE Health Forum. He has worked as international press editor at the French Prime Minister's Information Office, Director of events and publications at the French free market think-tank Institut EURO 92, Research Director at the World Association of Newspapers, Managing Editor of the website Executip.com, and as a media relations consultant for the OECD. He holds an MA in social sciences from the Catholic University of Paris.