“MAPPs can be a promising way of working”: Podcast with HTA’s and Payers From DIA Hamburg 2016
On 7 April, key participants associated with the IMI ADAPT SMART project met to discuss the consortia’s progress in finding ways to implement MAPPs in Europe. Participants included: Hans-Georg Eichler, Senior Medical Officer at the European Medicines Agency (EMA); Luk Maes, Executive Director, Regulatory Scientific Policies Europe, for Bristol-Myers Squibb; Ad Schuurman, Head of the Business Contact Centre & International Affairs, National Health Care Institute of the Netherlands (ZIN); and Sarah Garner Associate Director Science Policy and Research, National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
“Essentially we want to address one conundrum that many people call evidence-versus-access. Why is that? We aren’t just developing drugs for patients in some distant future. We have patients who need new drugs right now and their window of opportunity is closing. So we need to address this conundrum. Patients have the right to have well-tested drugs but this takes time. So how can we square this circle?” – Hans-Georg Eichler, Senior Medical Officer, European Medicines Agency (EMA)
“One barrier is the skepticism among half the payers in Europe. The second half do think (MAPPs) can be a promising way of working for a few diseases where immediate life-threatening issues are at stake. But payers want to see control on volume and costs and data. And, until now, the data issue has not been solved. So it’s a real challenge to see if we can do that better in the future.” – Ad Schuurman, Head of the Business Contact Centre & International Affairs, National Health Care Institute of the Netherlands (ZIN)
“MAPPs is still seen by many as another attempt by industry to create a new ultra-accelerated review process… On the contrary, the MAPPs concept will be using existing regulatory and legal tools. We aren’t creating anything new…it’s trying to bring much more control and efficiency to the process from the very beginning and with all stakeholders.” – Luk Maes, Executive Director, Regulatory Scientific Policies Europe, Bristol-Myers Squibb
“One issue is the capacity of healthcare systems to collect the data needed. It’s just not there at the moment…And then we have this conundrum of who is actually paying. And there is no opportunity in the system to have a dialogue about how we jointly do that.” – Sarah Garner, Associate Director Science Policy & Research, National Institute of Health & Care Excellence (NICE)