ISSUE:

Is international reference pricing and HTA driven reimbursement compatible?

OVERVIEW:

Submitting the reimbursed prices of other jurisdictions is mandatory when seeking drug reimbursement in an increasing number of APAC countries like Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. In general, countries typically refer to other markets with similar economic development. For example, Korea and Taiwan refer to advanced economies that include countries like Australia, Canada, and UK that set the price of drugs using health technology assessments (HTA), as well as countries that do not utilize HTA like the USA. Reasons for using international reference pricing (IRP) include: ensuring that payers get a fair deal when procuring new health technologies and providing countries with HTA capacity/capability issue with a reference point in price negotiations. However, results of CEA or CUA performed in one country is not easily transferred to another due to differences in health resource utilisation, quality of life tariffs, National fiscal policy etc. Moreover, public listed prices may not reflect the effective price due to commercial in confidence agreements (e.g., risk sharing, outcomes-based pricing), patient co-payments, different markups across the supply chain, which makes it the use of price referencing somewhat unreliable.

This issue panel will discuss the role of IRP in jurisdictions with mandatory HTA requirements for new pharmaceuticals and/or device. The first panellist will give an overview of the pros and cons from an academic perspective with multiple examples. The second panellist will give an industry perspective on IRP and with examples on how risks are dealt with and opportunities relating to IRP. The last panellist will present a payer/decision maker perspective.