Predicting the Cost of Publicly Funded Medicines: A Look at Different Forecasting Methods

Forecasting how much public money will be spent on medicines in the future is tough. There's a lot of uncertainty because new drugs keep hitting the market, and it's hard to know how they'll affect the economy. Experts haven't agreed on the best way to do this forecasting yet. Some people like to look at what's happened in the past to predict the future - this is called the top-down approach. Others mix past data with future possibilities - that's the bottom-up approach. This review wants to talk about bottom-up methods and see if they're good at predicting pharmaceutical costs.

Bottom-up methods use more than just historical data. They also look forward using something called horizon scanning. This helps identify new drugs that might hit the market and impact spending. It's like trying to predict what new toys will be popular next Christmas. By looking at past trends and future possibilities, bottom-up methods try to give a more detailed picture of future spending. But are they accurate? That's what this review wants to figure out.

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