The true value of food allergy treatments

Aimmune Therapeutics and DBV Technologies are developing experimental treatments to protect people against severe peanut allergy. Other companies are at work on treatments to protect people against allergies to other foods and ingredients.

Whether these treatments are safe and effective will be a question for the FDA to decide. But if they are approved, how do you assess their value?

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review has tried with preliminary reports. But in a new First Opinion, Dr. Thomas Casale, the chief medical adviser for operations for Food Allergy Research and Education, argues that ICER and others must go beyond simply focusing on the direct medical costs associated with food allergies. If you want to set a cost-effective price, he says, you have to takes into account myriad quality of life issues.

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