The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development advocates improvements in terms of the accessibility to health technologies and their safety. In a report published on Monday 16 January, a day ahead of the health ministers' meeting, the OECD says that a rebalancing is needed between the power of negotiation of paying bodies and that of producers.
The 230-page report notes that there is an ever-increasing number of expensive drugs. It highlights two trends: firstly, an increase in the price of medicines targeting a small group of people (medicines which are increasingly less likely to be taken in charge by paying bodies, insurance companies or public health service providers); and secondly, the prices of medicines that target a wide population (products that are generally very effective and that in the long-term good are value for money) remain unaffordable for most people who are sick.
Against this backdrop, the OECD calls for the price of health technologies to be matched with the benefits that these technologies bring compared with other possibilities, and the OECD considers that this price must be adjusted according to the proof of the technologies' real impact. More specifically, the OECD recommends a rebalancing between the negotiating power of paying bodies and that of producers, by improving the transparency of the process and by strengthening cooperation through bulk purchasing. The OECD also favours tariff agreements, like those that exist in Italy and England, under which the final price of a medicine is linked to how effectively it performs. This is on condition that management costs and administrative costs are kept under control and that the clinical data and observations are made widely available to the scientific community, the OECD report states.
Among the other recommendations, the OECD suggests strengthening incentives for private investment in research and development for neglected illnesses such as HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis, anti-microbial resistance or problems of dementia. It also calls for the safety of biomedical technology to be better assessed.
The report can be consulted at: http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/social-issues-migration-health/managing-new-technologies-in-health-care_9789264266438-en #.WHzDlFMrLIU. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)