by Guillaume Biétry, on the Genentech campus, San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 10 (APM) - The president of Roche Pharma France has suggested health systems adopt value-based pricing models, using real world efficiency data, to finance innovation.
Speaking on Tuesday during a tour of the Genentech campus, in San Francisco, Corinne Le Goff said the company is reflecting on new methods for financing innovation, involving basing prices on the efficiency of the drugs in real life.
Her comments came following questioning on the controversy that has raged throughout the year over the high price of new hepatitis C treatment Gilead’s Sovaldi (sofosbuvir); a debate she said she was watching “attentively”.
“These new products place great pressure on the reimbursement system. Immediately, the budgetary impact is gigantic … France has solved the problem in the social security budget bill (PLFSS) for 2015,” she said.
Voted in last week, the PLFSS will see the set up of a new regulation specifically targeting hepatitis C (HCV) drug spending (APMMA 40190).
“Discussions (with a view to obtaining a price) are complicated. But, in France it is possible to reach agreement. Innovations reach the market and find their way to the patients. There are various mechanisms; innovation is acknowledged,” Le Goff said.
“However, we are reflecting on new financing methods” in as far as “we have reached the end of something,” she added, at a point when numerous voices - all highly critical - are calling for the launch of a debate on financing innovation in France.
The Roche objective, already mentioned by its chief executive, Severin Schwan, in October 2013 (APMMA 35980), is to “make the system sustainable” and reflect “in care pathway terms”.
In line with this goal, the group has launched a programme, called “Personalised Reimbursement Model” (PRM) to collect data on the use of its drugs in real life and study the efficiency gains generated.
These data could then be used when the price of a product needs to change. “There are price corrections all the time, frequently downwards, that are not explained. Why not request price rises where the efficiency data are better than expected?” the boss of Roche Pharma France said.
According to Le Goff, the price should be differentiated depending on efficiency, indication by indication.
“In breast cancer for instance, all indications are not equal when it comes to efficiency gains. It is not the same thing when the product is approved in third line, in first line or in adjuvant therapy, or in combination with another drug,” she pointed out.
Under way in a number of other countries, the PRM programme is being trialled this year in 14 pilot cancer centres in metastatic breast cancer in France, a pathology in which Roche markets Avastin (bevacizumab), Herceptin (trastuzumab), Perjeta (pertuzumab) and Kadcyla (trastuzumab emtansine).
In France, Roche used the services of the Santeos (Atos Worldline group) to collect real life data of patients treated with its drugs. It also relied on the database presented by UNICANCER in October (APMMA 40000).
The first data extractions with Santeos went ahead “a few weeks ago,” according to Le Goff, and were transmitted to the French economic committee for health products (CEPS) which is “particularly keen and interested” and may use them to review the prices.
At term, the evaluation of efficiency in real life proposed by Roche could complement that performed ahead of price attribution and requested by the French national authority for health (HAS) that published its first two opinions on Friday, including an opinion on Kadcyla (APMMA 40742).
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