Editorial Policies

Focus and Scope

Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways publishes original researches and reviews in pharmacoeconomics and health economics. 

The aim is to provide contents of the highest quality, authority and accessibility. Emphasis is placed on evaluation of new drugs and pharmacoeconomics models, but the journal also publishes economic analysis of all types of healthcare interventions and of health policy initiatives, evaluation of methodologies, and analysis of pricing and reimbursement systems. Readership include health economists, market access experts, and in general everyone who have an interest in pharmacoeconomics, health economics, health policy, and public health.
Contents are subject to double-blind peer review process and are editorially independent. 
Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways is an open access journal that provides immediate open access to all of its articles (both HTML and PDF versions).

 

Section Policies

Editorial

Editorials are short articles on issues of topical importance. They aim at offering a personal perspective on a topic of recent interest. Therefore, we encourage our editorial writers to express their opinions, giving the author the opportunity to present criticism or address controversy.

Figures and tables can be included in editorials, if necessary. Word limit: about 1,000-1,500 words      

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Original research

Original researches include original works of research and analysis especially regarding economic evaluations such as cost-effectiveness, cost-utility, cost effectiveness analysis, and budget impact model. The articles should include description of how the data of cost was identified and quantified and, in case of a budget impact model, how the model was structured.

A structured abstract of less than 300 words is required. The text is limited to about 6,000 words (not including abstract, tables, figures, and references); about 6 tables (a detail of cost data input and of results should be included), and there are no reference limits.

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Review (Economic Analysis)

Review should be focused on a specific drug, class of drugs, or pathology.

Reviews on specific drug or class of drugs must include clinical issue and therapeutic role. Pharmacoeconomic profile and synthesis of the available economic evidence should receive the greatest emphasis.

Reviews on pathology must include clinical issue and therapeutic options; cost of illness should receive the greatest emphasis.

An abstract of less than 300 words is required. The text is limited to about 6,000 words (not including abstract, tables, figures, and references); about 6 tables, and no reference limit.

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Methods

Articles should focus on specific methods and techniques used in economic analysis. Principles and applications of the techniques must be illustrated and practical examples of use should be reported.

An abstract of less than 300 words is required. The text is limited to 4,000 words (not including abstract, tables, figures, and references); about 3-4 tables, and no reference limit.

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Focus On

Focus On articles should cover an aspect of an issue that is relevant to the journal’s readership. For example it could be a discussion on the adoption of a new technology, or on issue concerned pricing and reimbursement. This section also include small-scale researches, preliminary results or brief reports that bring out a message adequate for the journal's scope and of particular interest to the community.

An unstructured abstract of less than 300 words is required. The text is limited to 1,500-3,000 words (not including abstract, tables, figures, and references); max 2 tables/figures, and no reference limits.

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Brief drug profile

It’s a brief review on the clinical and pharmacoeconomic aspects of a specific drug. The article should begin with a brief discussion on the disease for which the drug has received the indication. In case of two or more indications in each article will be discussed only one. Indication and dosing, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, efficacy and safety should be reported. Pharmacoeconomics profile should be focus on review of economic evaluations of the drug or the cost of illness, if economic analysis are not available in literature.

The text is limited to 3,000 words (not including tables and references); about 3 tables, and no reference limit.

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Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor should reports comments on papers published in Farmeconomia. Health Economics and Therapeutic Pathways. They should contain substantive ideas and commentary supported by appropriate data and references. Whenever possible, they will be published with the reply of the published paper's author.

No abstract is required. The text is limited to 1,000 words; max 2 tables/figures, and no reference limit.

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Supplement

Published supplements are fully searchable and freely accessible online.

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Commentary

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Errata corrige

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Peer Review Process

This journal uses double-blind peer review: therefore, Authors’ identities are concealed from the Reviewers, and Reviewers’ identities are concealed from the Authors, throughout the review process. A summary of this process is available here.

 

1.       Author submits the manuscript

The Author usually submits the paper via OJS online system. Occasionally, the journal may accept submissions by email.

 

2.       Managing Editor’s first assessment

All manuscripts receive an initial review by the Managing Editor, who checks:

  • Quality and consistency;
  • Plagiarism, using the iThenticate software and following the COPE guidelines;
  • Anonymization consistent with the double-blind peer review; and
  • Adherence to the journal’s Author Guidelines.

If the manuscript is not appropriate for the journal or is not sufficiently original and interesting may be promptly rejected. Sometimes, if the paper is not suitable for the journal, the Editor may suggest to submit the manuscript to a more appropriate journal.

Other manuscripts are sent to the peer review process.

 

3.       Peer review process

The Managing Editor identifies possible Reviewers from SEEd database and PubMed and sends invitations. Two to four Reviewers are required. About two weeks are given to the Reviewers to complete the review, give their recommendation (accept, decline, revisions required, resubmit for review, or resubmit elsewhere), and submit the checklist via web.

 

4.       Managing Editor and Editor in chief’s evaluation

The Managing Editor receives comments and recommendations from the Reviewers and shares them with the Editor in chief. If the Reviewers’ comments differ widely, an additional Reviewer may be invited in order to take a final decision on the manuscript.

The final Managing Editor’s decision can be:

  • Accept submission without editorial revisions.
  • Revisions required: the Author is invited to revise the manuscript to address specific concerns. Revised manuscripts are evaluated by the Managing Editor and the Editor in chief.
  • Resubmit for review: the Author is invited to substantially revise the manuscript in terms of consistency, writing, and organization before reconsideration. Resubmitted manuscripts are reviewed by the Managing Editor and Reviewers.
  • Resubmit elsewhere: the Author is invited to submit the manuscript to a more appropriate journal.
  • Decline submission: the paper is not adequate for publication in the journal, usually because of insufficient conceptual advance, major technical and/or interpretational problems, poor quality, or ethical problems.

Once the final decision is taken, the Managing Editor informs the Author. In all case, the Reviewer’s comments are sent to the Author.

 

5.       Next steps

If the manuscript is accepted, the Managing Editor sends it to the editing process and checks any legal and administrative documentation. Finally, after the APC payment, the paper is published.

 

Publication Frequency

Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways is published continuously.

 

Open Access Policy

Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways is an open access journal that provides immediate open access to all of its articles (both HTML and PDF versions) on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of all the published articles in respect of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License. For any different use you need to get permissions.

  1. All contents are freely available as both HTML and PDF files.
  2. Farmeconomia's Open Access without delay (e.g. no embargo period).
  3. Farmeconomia's funding model does not charge authors, readers or their institutions for access.

 

Archiving

Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways to ensure secure and permanent preservation of your content stores all the articles through Public Knowledge Project Private LOCKSS Network (PKP PLN)

Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways retains copies of submitted manuscripts and supporting files.

 

Creative Commons Licence



Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways – http://journals.seedmedicalpublishers.com/index.php/FE – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License.

 

Editorial Board

Editor in Chief

Francesco Saverio Mennini. PhD.

Director Centre for Economic Evaluation and HTA (EEHTA) CEIS, Faculty of Economics - University of Rome “Tor Vergata”.

Professor of Health Economics and Microeconomics, Faculty of Economics and Faculty of Science - University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. Institute for Leadership and Management in Health, Kingston University, London, UK

President, SiHTA

Editor in Chief Emeritus

Mario Eandi. MD. Former Full Professor of Clinical Pharmacology at the School of Medicine and Surgery, University of Turin, Italy

Advisory Board

Sarah Acaster. MD, PhD. Director, Oxford Outcomes, Oxford, UK

Nicola Braggio. Area Vice President Latin America, AstraZeneca

Thomas Davidson. Ass. Professor, PhD, Health Economics Division of Health Care Analysis
Department of Medical and Health Sciences Linköping University

Wilson Follador. Pharm D, MSD,PhD, Consultant on Health Economics, Market Access & VBHC, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Brian Godman. Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden - Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, UK

J-Matthias Graf von der Schulenburg. PhD. Director Center of Health Economics, Leibniz University Hanover, Hanover

Anke-Peggy Holtorf. PhD, MBA. Health Outcomes Strategies, Basel, Switzerland

Mihajlo Jakovljevic. MD, PhD Associate Professor Head of Health Economics & Pharmacoeconomics The Faculty of Medical Sciences University of Kragujevac, Serbia

Edward Kim. MD, MBA. Health Economics and Outcomes Research, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, East Hanover, NJ

Güvenç Kockaya. Vice President, Health Economics and Policy Association, Ankara, Turkey

Carlo Lucioni. Adis International, Milan, Italy

Lorenzo G. Mantovani. Professor (Associate) of Public Health, Department of Statistics and Quantitative Methods University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy

Mark JC Nuijten. MD, MBA, PhD. A2M (Ars Accessus Medica BV) - Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Ewa Orlewska. MD, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, the Jan Kochanowski University, Kielce, Poland

Lorenzo Pradelli. MD. AdRes Health Economics & Outcomes Research, Torino, Italy

Umberto Restelli. PhD. Center for Health Economics, Social and Health Care Management LIUC Università Cattaneo. Italy

Steven Simoens. Professor of Pharmacoeconomics, KU Leuven, Belgium

Giuseppe Turchetti. PhD, Fulbright Scholar, Professor of Economics and Management, Institute of Management, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy

Xin Xu. PhD. Lead Economist. Office on Smoking and Health. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA

Richard J. Willke. Chief Science Officer - International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research

Managing Editor

Ombretta Bandi. SEEd Medical Publishers, Torino - Italy
Email: o.bandi@seedstm.com

 

Ethical Guidelines

Conflict of interest

Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways requires authors, reviewers, and editors to disclose any competing financial interests in relation to manuscript submitted.

Competing interests are defined as those of a financial nature that, through their potential influence on behavior or content or from perception of such potential influences, could undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived value of a publication. They can include any of the following:

  • Funding: research support by organizations that may gain or lose financially through this publication.
  • Employment: recent, present or anticipated employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through this publication.
  • Personal financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies that may gain or lose financially through publication; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organizations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication.

 

Authors

All authors are required to complete the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and to return it to the Managing Editor (o.bandi@seedstm.com).

Authors from pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial organizations, should declare these as competing interests on submission. They should also adhere to the Good Publication Practice guidelines for pharmaceutical companies (GPP3), which are designed to ensure that publications are produced in a responsible and ethical manner. The guidelines also apply to any companies or individuals that work on industry-sponsored publications, such as freelance writers, contract research organizations, communications and consulting companies.

Editorial staff

Editors declare any conflict of interest once a year. Decisions on manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest will be made by another editor.

Peer Reviewers

All peer reviewers should declare any conflict of interests upon acceptance to review a paper.

Confidentiality

In case reports, the privacy of patients should be respected. The identification of the patient has to be impossible. If, for scientific reasons, the patient’s identity shouldn’t be disguised, the authors should require written consent from patients: the document should be at SEEd’s disposal. The Consent Request form should be asked to the editorial staff (o.bandi@seedstm.com).

Informed consent

Every clinical trial submitted to Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways should include a statement that the study obtained ethics approval by the ethical committee (or a simple acknowledgment, or a statement that it was not required), reporting also the name of the ethics committee and the ID, and a statement that participants gave informed consent before taking part.

Human/Animal Rights

For articles concerning research on human beings, Authors should also provide assurance that the study protocol conformed to the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki.

For studies involving animal experimentation, Authors should provide assurance that all animals received humane care according to the criteria described in the "Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals" published by the National Institutes of Health and available at https://grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/Guide-for-the-Care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals.pdf .

Plagiarism and Other Misconducts

Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways follows the COPE guidelines concerning the handling of plagiarism and any research or editorial misconducts (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts). Therefore, if a submitted article contains plagiarism, i.e. unattributed use of large portions of text and/or data, presented as if they were by the author, Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways editors will contact the authors requiring an explanation. If this is not satisfactory, the journal may contact the author’s institution. In specific cases, peer reviewers are asked to check images for falsification/fabrication.

Redundant publications will be managed in the same way, once again following COPE guidelines (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts).

 

Crossref Similarity Check SEEd Medical Publishers uses the iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Wherever you see the “Similarity Check Deposited” or “Similarity Check Depositor” logos, you can be reassured that the publisher whose content you are reading is committed to actively combating plagiarism and publishing original research. View SEEd Medical Publishers’s plagiarism policy above. To find out more about Similarity Check visit www.crossref.org/crosscheck/index.html

 

Appeals and complaints

Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways adheres to COPE guidelines regarding appeals to editorial decisions and complaints.

 

Authorship

An 'author' is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. According to the ICMJE guidelines, to qualify as an author one should have:

  1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not usually justify authorship.

Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways does not permit the changing, adding or deleting of authors after publication of the paper.

Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘Acknowledgements’ section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance.

Medical writers

The involvement of medical writers or anyone else who assisted with the preparation of the manuscript content should be acknowledged, along with their source of funding, as described in the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) guidelines. The role of medical writers should be acknowledged explicitly in the ‘Acknowledgements’.

 

Referees’ Rewards

Given the crucial role of peer review process in warranting the high scientific quality of the publications, Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways offers to every referee of this journal a 30% discount on the publication fee for article submissions.

 

Peer Reviewers Guidelines

Submitted manuscripts are usually reviewed by two to four experts. Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways operates using a double-blind peer review system. Reviewers should ensure that their reports are anonymous and do not include identifiable information such as tracked changes or comments.

Peer reviewers will be asked to select their recommendation among the following:

  • Accept submission without editorial revisions.
  • Revisions required: the author is invited to revise the manuscript to address specific concerns.
  • Resubmit for review: the author is invited to substantially revise the manuscript in terms of consistency, writing, and organization before reconsideration.
  • Resubmit elsewhere: the author is invited to submit the manuscript to a more appropriate journal.
  • Decline submission: the paper is not adequate for publication in the journal.

They should also alert the editors of any issues relating to author misconduct such as plagiarism and unethical behavior.

Publication of research articles and reviews by Farmeconomia. Health economics and therapeutic pathways is dependent primarily on their validity and coherence, as judged by peer reviewers and editors. The reviewers may also be asked whether the writing is comprehensible and how interesting they consider the article.

Points to consider

A checklist is provided in order to help the Reviewers to ensure that a complete revision is submitted.

Reviewers are asked to provide detailed, constructive comments that will help the editors make a decision on publication and the author(s) improve their manuscript. A key issue is whether the work has serious flaws that should preclude its publication, or whether there are additional experiments or data required to support the conclusions drawn. Where possible, reviewers should provide references to substantiate their comments.

Reviewers should address the points below and indicate whether they consider any required revisions to be major compulsory revisions (if further analysis is required that may change the conclusions or additional controls are required to support the claims or the interpretations) or minor essential revisions

  • Is the question posed important and well defined?
  • Are the data sound and well controlled?
  • Is the interpretation (discussion and conclusion) well balanced and supported by the data?
  • Are the methods appropriate and well described, and are sufficient details provided to allow others to evaluate and/or replicate the work?
  • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the methods?
  • Can the writing, organization, tables and figures be improved?
  • Are there any ethical or competing interests issues you would like to raise?

Reviewers are reminded of the importance of timely reviews.
Any manuscript sent for peer review is a confidential document and should remain so until it is formally published.

All peer reviewers are asked to declare their competing interests in relation to the paper they are reviewing. The peer reviewer declaration is included in the confidential comment report.

In the context of peer review, a competing interest exists when the reviewer’s interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by their personal or financial relationship with other people or organizations. Reviewers should disclose any financial competing interests but also any non-financial competing interests that may cause them embarrassment were they to become public after the publication of the manuscript.

Reviewers are asked to complete a declaration, after considering the following questions:

  • Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of this paper, either now or in the future?
  • Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organization that may in any way gain or lose financially from the publication of this paper, either now or in the future?
  • Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the content of the manuscript? Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript?
  • Do you have any other financial competing interests?
  • Do you have any non-financial competing interests in relation to this paper?

 

Fast-track review

Farmeconomica. Health economics and therapeutic pathways provides a fast-track review option that provides peer review comments within 10 business days after submission and payment of the fast-track fee (€ 835)

Please note that this payment is strictly to facilitate the rapid review process and does not in any way guarantee acceptance or publication of your article.

If you wish to make use of this facility, please choose the ‘fast track review’ option when submitting your article. If you choose the ‘fast-track’ review option, you are agreeing to pay the € 835 for this service.