The Impact of Payer and Reimbursement Authorities Evidence Requirements on Healthcare Solution Design for Muscular Dystrophies

For rare diseases that start early and are slowly degenerative, despite the desire to create solutions that benefit the patient, healthcare system realities can be prohibitive to generate an affordable and effective solution. The optimal care pathway for muscular dystrophy, similar to all degenerative diseases, would be a rapid and accurate diagnosis, pathophysiological confirmation and application of therapeutics that slowly replaces damaged tissue with healthy tissue, supported by adjuvant solutions that stimulate the tissue to repair and reduce inflammation and fibrosis. This would increase the lifespan and quality of life in an affordable way. For all diseases, two key stakeholders, the paying entity and the patient, fundamentally define whether revenue can be generated. Healthcare decision-making commissioners who agree to pay for the product and patient-reported outcomes jointly inform whether the intervention increases the quality of life related to existing standards of care and, therefore, if it should be paid for. This chapter explains why this has not yet happened and efforts initiated to correct this and addresses how the components and data used in this decision-making process could be updated, adapted and integrated into every stage of the development of solutions and how organisational innovation may enable the field.