Review of Programs for Improving Patient's Access to Medicines

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: This study presented the analysis period, the complexity of combined therapy and comparator choice as the key limitations in the economic evaluation of new drugs, and discussed programs for coping with these limitations. METHODS: This study evaluated the post-evaluation, risk-sharing agreement, extra funding program, and flexible incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) threshold as actions or programs that would increase accessibility to costly new drugs. The study also presented the cases of other countries. The application of the post-evaluation was considered to deal with high uncertainty regarding new drugs. RESULTS: The risk-sharing agreement was introduced in European countries as well as South Korea and has been responsible for the shift from using the financial schemes to outcome-based schemes. The drug funding program has had troubled in securing stable extra funds. The application of higher ICER in the economic evaluation of expensive and innovative oncology drugs was criticized because of the inequity between oncology patients and patients with other diseases. CONCLUSION: Therefore, introducing and applying actions that would increase the accessibility to costly new drugs in South Korea have been deemed necessary after careful reviews and discussions with various stakeholders (insurer, policy makers, pharmaceutical companies and patients).