MARA Rating Insight: Why Resource Use & Cost Implications Decide Coverage

Since 2020, one pattern has been clear in our database:

Assets averaging 2.8 in Resource Use & Cost progressed through HTA reviews with minimal resistance. By contrast, those closer to 2.0 often triggered budget-impact concerns, price concessions, and delays.

That 0.8-point gap can be the difference between “too expensive” and “worth the investment.”

What the Domain Measures

Resource Use & Cost Implications go beyond cost-effectiveness. They assess a therapy’s system-wide footprint, drawing directly from payer frameworks at NICE (UK), G-BA/IQWiG (Germany), and ICER (US). MARA translates these into a transparent A++ to C score across 350+ assets.

Key dimensions include:

• Direct medical costs: acquisition, administration, monitoring.
• Implementation costs: upfront spend on equipment, staffing, training.
• Cost offsets: avoided hospitalizations, procedures, or downstream events.
• Variability across settings: whether savings hold across hospitals, clinics, or regions.

Strong vs. Marginal Scores

• A++ / A+ / A (≥2.8): Minimal net budget strain, sometimes even net savings. Adoption tends to be straightforward for payers.
• B++ to C (≤2.0): High resource burden. Outcomes often include label restrictions, pilot-only approvals, or mandatory price concessions.

Even a 0.5-point shift can flip payer judgment from “case-by-case” to “broad coverage.”

Actionable Takeaways

• Market Access Professionals: Build early, local budget-impact models. Quantify avoided hospital stays and downstream savings.
• Investors & Acquirers: Prioritize assets with documented cost offsets. Portfolio predictability improves when therapies free up resources.
• Drug Developers: Minimize implementation costs—optimize formats, streamline training, pilot in representative centers to stress-test affordability.

The Edge of Independence

Our anonymized distributions across 350+ assets show precisely where your product’s resource-use profile sits—and where payers will challenge assumptions. Without an external benchmark, internal teams risk overestimating payer tolerance.

Do you know how your asset scores on Resource Use & Cost Implications?

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