Two years and waiting: Understanding national shortfalls in access to innovative medicines
Ensuring that new therapies reach patients in a timely fashion, at an adequate price and with no undue restrictions on use is a serious responsibility – critical to patient well-being and essential for the continued growth and innovation of the global healthcare industry. Yet, in spite of its acknowledged importance, and in direct contravention of the official time limits for pricing and reimbursement decisions, it is a clear that in some European markets patients wait more than two years before gaining access to a new medication. An acceptable state of affairs? Clearly not.
Our clients, a leading European pharmaceutical industry federation and a consortium of global pharmaceutical companies, wished to develop arguments that would serve as a basis for discussions with the European Commission to raise awareness of the extent and nature of these delays and restrictions on access.
Working in close collaboration with our clients, we were able to provide country-by-country evidence that the vast majority of member states with formal pricing and/or reimbursement approval systems significantly exceeded the stipulated targets for granting pricing and reimbursement status during the period 1997 to 2001. In some cases the respective targets were exceeded by more than 100%.
Our study provided strong lobbying ammunition for our clients which has raised awareness at governmental level of the need to improve member state performance and timeline compliance.
To learn more about the outcome of this study, review our published report in the publications section. To discuss how we can help you lead the way as a shaper of government thinking, contact us.