What is the Patient Engagement Fair-Market Value Calculator?

By Silke Schoch, Senior Programs Associate

“Fair-market value” (FMV) calculators are tools traditionally used by industry to ensure the compensation rates they are using when engaging doctors, researchers, and other outside experts are both competitive and compliant with regulations. For example, one doctor’s rates might be higher than another’s due to having additional academic qualifications or participation on government advisory committees. These methods for calculating appropriate rates for clinicians and researchers are not appropriate for setting rates for patients involved in patient-focused drug development.

Based on patient group and industry member feedback that an alternative process for determining FMV for patient engagement was needed, the National Health Council (NHC) set out to develop a patient-specific FMV calculator. To oversee development of the FMV calculator, we assembled a Steering Committee and Review Committee in early 2019. With the Steering Committee’s oversight, in February, we selected Ankura as our FMV project vendor. Together, we developed interview guides to gather information from patient-group staff, compliance staff within industry, and others with significant experience engaging patients. Interviews kicked off in mid-April and are expected to be completed by the end of May.
Over the summer, we will distill insights gleaned from the interviews into an Excel-based FMV calculator to guide compensation for patients and patient groups when engaging with companies and others and expect the calculator to be ready by early Fall. We also are excited to be working in collaboration with our colleagues in Europe, to ensure useful tools are available on both sides of the Atlantic.

Please stay tuned for future updates on the NHC FMV calculator and a related project on development of patient-friendly legal contracts.