ABSTRACT
Pharmacoeconomics is a fairly new term, but as an area of study and research, it has been around for a long time. There is no accepted definition, but the field can be divided into two areas. The first is the application of economic principles to problems involving the People, costs, funding, and projections of needs. The second application is to the workings of the pharmaceutical industry – Prices, profits, R&D costs, and the like. Socioeconomic evaluations are research methods based on the social sciences, primarily economics and psychology. Three types of studies assess both the costs and the consequences of medical interventions: Cost-benefit, cost-effectiveness, and cost-utility analyses. Direct costs are important in estimating cost–benefit and cost-effectiveness but indirect costs are no less real, even if intangible. It is the struggle to measure the intangibles that have led to research in the area of Quality of Life.
