Value-Based Pricing for Specialty Drugs: Solving the implementation puzzle using Blockchain

Specialty drugs are used to treat complex chronic conditions, but their high costs have attracted the attention of both payers and policy makers. Value-based Pricing (VBP) can solve the shortcomings of traditional fixed pricing by using outcome indicators of the medication to provide financial benefits. Although such pricing agreements have been widely touted, there are significant implementation barriers which include outcome measurement challenges, absence of suitable data, lack of trust among stakeholders and data privacy concerns. Blockchain technology has various intrinsic features such as decentralized storage, smart contracts, and interoperability which can be leveraged to solve these challenges. In this paper, our primary objective and contribution is to present ‘‘RxValueChain’’, a dual consortium blockchain application, that allows, in a decentralized and secure fashion, the implementation of value-based agreements for specialty drugs. The paper concludes with areas of future research for VBP implementation using blockchain to improve patient access and affordability.