Arnold Consultancy & Technology, LLC Awarded $357,000 Phase I Grant to develop a Health Economic Model Marketplace

National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded a $357,000 SBIR grant to Arnold Consultancy & Technology, LLC to develop an open source model marketplace.

MIAMI BEACH, FL, UNITED STATES, December 30, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- New cancer drugs have long been at the forefront of research and debate about rising healthcare expenditure in the United States; researchers and decision-makers rely on evidence to support fair pricing and ensure patient access. HE models support stakeholders in decision-making about the most cost-effective care for the available resources. Annually, stakeholders spend an estimated $1B on health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), much of it to create and recreate health economic (HE) models. Global government bodies use these models to formulate response and reimbursement decisions, aid resource allocation and suggest value-based pricing for new therapies. Sharing models by making their “source code” openly available would mitigate these problems, but prior initiatives to promote model sharing have had limited success in part because model authors fear the loss of their intellectual property and are not paid for their models being deposited.

“Funding from NCI will enable ACT to develop ModEx, an online, decentralized, transparent, and accessible model exchange that facilitates all data and source code to be made openly available. It will address developers’ inertia by rewarding royalties to authors who deposit their models and Pharma will benefit from reduced cost and increased efficiency. ModEx will sustainably fund those royalty payments through fees collected from model users. In exchange for their payments, model users will gain access to model source code that has undergone validation and to additional (paid) modules containing, e.g., new data sources and premium services,” said Dr. Renée Arnold, Arnold Consultancy & Technology, LLC (ACT) President & CEO.

“Availability of open source models (OSMs) in an easily accessible platform (ModEx) facilitates stakeholder review, increasing model quality and making development more efficient. ModEx would target pharmaceutical manufacturers, researchers, educators, policy makers, and others. The ModEx team will engage with CISNET members to include cancer models and ontologies. There is currently no centralized OS exchange mechanism for vetted HE models. ModEx will increase model robustness by using validation assessment tools for model quality so end-users can have confidence in deposited models,” stated Arnold.

“This project will create, in collaboration with developers of the Tufts CEVR Open-Source Model Clearinghouse framework, a functional freemium/premium ModEx prototype. The model platform will contain options to pay modelers for premium aspects of OSMs, an ontology and search module, a user registration module, and a database search module. We will conduct usability testing of search, payment and collaboration on the ModEx prototype with 20 existing cancer models via a 10-member Global Expert Advisory Panel, ensuring an enjoyable, curated experience for all stakeholders” opined Dr. Arnold. “ModEx will facilitate model sharing in support of pricing and reimbursement of new technologies to support efficient and equitable investments in development of new cancer therapies,” stated Arnold.


About Arnold Consultancy & Technology, LLC (ACT)
ACT, a certified Women’s Business Enterprise, is a cutting-edge outcomes research and software development company, with over 50 years’ combined experience serving pharmaceutical, biotechnology and government clients. Our scientists have developed online and offline software programs to facilitate and manage the drug development process, determine the cost-effectiveness of different therapeutic strategies and improve the health outcomes associated with patient self-management of chronic diseases. For more information, please visit http://www.arnoldllc.com

About Grant

https://reporter.nih.gov/search/SqvXs4SfRkS0DiFA8yj1Yw/project-details/11052066#news



Renée JG Arnold, PharmD, RPh
2301 Collins Avenue, Suite 810
Miami Beach, FL 33139-1631

rarnold@arnoldllc.com

Renée JG Arnold, PharmD, RPh
Arnold Consultancy & Technology, LLC
+1 917-945-3267
rarnold@arnoldllc.com
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