OBJECTIVES: France’s Transparency Commission assesses the additional clinical benefit using the same clinical data used in submissions evaluated by the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics (NCPE). As such, we investigate the association between the Amélioration du Service Médical Rendu (ASMR) in France and Rapid Review (RR) outcomes in Ireland.

METHODS: A dataset was created which included data all drugs evaluated by the NCPE from 2015 to 2020. The outcome from the RR was recorded i.e., Health Technology Assessment (HTA) required or HTA not required. This dataset also included data on ICD-10, first-in-class, orphan status and France’s additional benefit rating which was recorded Major (ASMR I), Important (ASMR II), Moderate (ASMR III), Minor (ASMR IV) and no clinical improvement (ASMR V).

RESULTS: There were 192 matched pairs (both RR and ASMR outcomes), 81% of which required a HTA (n=156). Of those that required a HTA, 49%, 63% and 25% were oncology, first-in-class and orphan drugs respectively. Corresponding figures for drugs that did not require a HTA were 25%, 53% and 11% respectively. Drugs that did not require a HTA were more likely to receive a No clinical improvement compared to drugs that required a HTA (58% vs 52%). Although, the RR outcome and additional benefit ratings were not correlated (p=.124, chi-square test, Cramer’s V =0.173), showing not significant results, p > 0.05.

CONCLUSIONS: The results highlight that there does not seem to be a correlation between the RR outcomes in Ireland with that of ASMR rating in France. However, the p-value (p=.124) is not very distant from the significance level of 0.05.