OBJECTIVES: Oncology drugs among the most costly healthcare technologies and their prices are constantly rising. Therefore, these drugs are highly dependent on reimbursement from healthcare systems, since patients cannot afford them. In Brazil, the National Committee for the Incorporation of Technologies (CONITEC) is responsible for guiding the Ministry of Health (MoH) about reimbursement requests in the public healthcare system, while the National Regulatory Agency for Private Health Insurance and Plans (ANS) is the regulator in charge of private health maintenance organizations. This study analyzed the time to reimbursement of oncology drugs in Brazilian public and private healthcare systems. Since reimbursement of oncology infusion therapies is mandatory for ANS, only oral drugs were analyzed for this sector.

METHODS: This is an exploratory study, in which data were retrieved from the official websites (CONITEC and ANS). The analysis corresponded to time elapsed between registration from Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency and reimbursement. Fisher test was applied to detect statistical difference between groups.

RESULTS: CONITEC received 20 reimbursement requests for oncology drugs. Of these, 10 (50%) were accepted. Among the reimbursed drugs, the most frequent indication was breast cancer (40%), followed by lung cancer (20%). The median time from approval to reimbursement of oral oncology drugs was 7.6 and 7.8 years in public and private health systems, respectively, and 12.7 years for infusion drugs in public health system. Although the reimbursement of infusion drugs in public system was the most time consuming process, there was no difference between of oral and infusion drugs in (p = 0.967). No difference was observed between public and private reimbursement times for oral drugs as well (p = 0.926).

CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study points that the process of reimbursement in Brazil for oncology drugs is time consuming in both public and private health systems.