Most Favoured Nation
To avoid that the price of pharmaceuticals differ too much between countries, pricing referencing is commonly used. For many years, European countries have used International Reference Pricing (IRP) or External Reference Pricing (ERP), whereby the price of a medicine is benchmarked against prices in a selected basket of reference countries. The composition of that basket […]
Why Patient Engagement Is Essential for Market Access of Medical Innovation in Belgium
In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that medical innovation is not only a technical or economic issue. It is also a social and ethical one. New treatments, ranging from well-known drugs to advanced therapies such as ATMPs, are reshaping expectations for patients and healthcare providers. Yet these innovations continue to face complex market […]
Faster Access to Innovative Medicines in the BeNeLux
Innovative medicines are evolving one after another at an accelerating pace, yet for patients, access can still feel slow and unequal. Across the BeNeLux countries, different systems exist to bridge this gap, each with its own logic, rules, and pitfalls. In this blog, we take you through Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, and explain how […]
The value of a proven pricing structure
If a pharmaceutical company targets to sell a pharmaceutical specialty in Belgium, the Minister of Economy must first approve a maximum price, after assessment by the price committee consisting of 15 members. The applicant must propose an ex-factory price for each registered packaging they wish to trade in Belgium. If a reimbursement procedure is initiated […]
Cost Minimisation Model
What is the added value of innovation? When the concerned innovation is a potential gamechanger in healthcare, patient’s benefit are forefront and immediately noticed. However, sometimes the benefit is only indirectly noticeable for the patients, e.g. in case of an improved drug administration method during surgery, which can facilitate the procedure, while the patient himself […]
How to deal with uncertainties?
As we all know, simulation models should predict the targeted outcome(s). The outcome can be the estimated budget, health gain (e.g. OS prediction) or any other quantification related to the subject of the analysis. As valid for almost all models, the designer should build a model that will quantify the potential effect without losing the […]
How to compare 2 data sets?
In our former blog, we stipulated the need for reliable clinical data when comparing 2 interventions. But, how to define ‘reliable clinical data’? Even when data are scientifically correct the way they are used in comparisons can reduce the reliability of the results. No need to say that decision makers prefer to see an analysis […]
The correlation between the selected reimbursement procedure and the estimated launch date
Imagine you are full of ambition and you recently started a new position in market access. Congratulations! After a few weeks of hard work your company identified you the best suited colleague to estimate the launch date of a new product. The choice is yours! You can read and apply legislation by yourself (good luck), […]
Inflation vs discounting
All market access colleagues involved in the preparation of economic files will be confronted with the aspect of inflation. There are 2 viewpoints versus ‘today’. We can analyse the past or we can estimate the future. In general, most countries rely on official numbers from national offices for statistics like StatBel in Belgium or the […]
Early Access
Clinical research is generally driven by the need to provide a solution to an unmet medical need. We all know that the expensive pathway between the ‘eureka’ moment (discovery of a new molecule) and the implementation on the market can take up to 15 years. Within this timeframe, a cascade of studies is initiated (efficacy, […]