Cost Effectiveness

The government’s decision for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee to hold an extra meeting in 2025 has been welcomed by Medicines Australia, which says that Australians already wait on average 466 days from the time a medicine is approved to when it is subsidized.

Medicines Australia has expressed skepticism over the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee’s claim that in March 2025 it will only be able to assess 32 submissions from companies that want to get their drugs subsidized under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

It is time for companies to take part in cross-country health technology assessments and stop asking “what’s in it for me?”

A high-profile panel that included a senior executive from F-Prime Capital, Novo Nordisk's India chief and a leading endocrinologist discussed, at a recent event, some of the big opportunities, challenges and transformational trends underway as obesity drugs take the world by storm.

The European Commission has registered a European citizens' initiative that explains how the EU can foster equitable, timely, affordable, safe and legal access to innovative psychedelic-assisted treatments. Work towards securing the one million signatures needed for the next step is starting soon.

Industry says it is ready to work with the government on the recommendations from a major review of Australia’s health technology assessment system that covers areas such as discount rate reductions and setting up a separate budgetary allocation to temporarily subsidize access to certain drugs.

New rules on health technology assessments in Spain make room for real-world evidence and early dialogue.

CBER Director Peter Marks said recent leaps in gene therapy science have not been matched by more affordable manufacturing technology and that the field needs to set a cost-effectiveness target. 

MSD welcomes the decision but says the drug should have gone through NICE’s Highly Specialized Technologies route that allows more flexibility regarding uncertainty around rare disease drugs.

Cost watchdog NICE has blocked Leqembi’s use, but a pricing deal could unlock access to the beta-amyloid targeting drug