TY - JOUR
T1 - Medicines access programs to cancer medicines in Australia and New Zealand
T2 - An exploratory study
AU - Grover, Piyush
AU - Babar, Zaheer-Ud-Din
AU - Oehmen, Raoul
AU - Vitry, Agnes
PY - 2018/3
Y1 - 2018/3
N2 - Medicines Access Programs (MAP) offer access to publicly unfunded medicines at the discretion of pharmaceutical companies. Limited literature is available on their extent and scope in Australia and New Zealand. This study aims to identify MAPs for cancer medicines that were operational in 2014-15 in Australia and New Zealand and describe their characteristics. A preliminary list of MAPs was sent to hospital pharmacists in Australia and New Zealand to validate and collect further information. Pharmaceutical companies were contacted directly to provide information regarding MAPs offered. Key stakeholders were interviewed to identify issues with MAPs. Fifty-one MAPs were identified covering a range of indications. The majority of MAPs were provided free of charge to the patient for medicines that were registered or in the process of being registered but were not funded. Variability in the number of MAPs across institutions and characteristics was observed. Australia offered more MAPs than New Zealand. Only two of 17 pharmaceutical companies contacted agreed to provide information on their MAPs. Eight stakeholder interviews were conducted. This identified that while MAPs are widely operational there is lack of clinical monitoring, inequity to access, operational issues and lack of transparency. Our results suggest a need for a standardised and mandated policy to mitigate issues with MAPs.
AB - Medicines Access Programs (MAP) offer access to publicly unfunded medicines at the discretion of pharmaceutical companies. Limited literature is available on their extent and scope in Australia and New Zealand. This study aims to identify MAPs for cancer medicines that were operational in 2014-15 in Australia and New Zealand and describe their characteristics. A preliminary list of MAPs was sent to hospital pharmacists in Australia and New Zealand to validate and collect further information. Pharmaceutical companies were contacted directly to provide information regarding MAPs offered. Key stakeholders were interviewed to identify issues with MAPs. Fifty-one MAPs were identified covering a range of indications. The majority of MAPs were provided free of charge to the patient for medicines that were registered or in the process of being registered but were not funded. Variability in the number of MAPs across institutions and characteristics was observed. Australia offered more MAPs than New Zealand. Only two of 17 pharmaceutical companies contacted agreed to provide information on their MAPs. Eight stakeholder interviews were conducted. This identified that while MAPs are widely operational there is lack of clinical monitoring, inequity to access, operational issues and lack of transparency. Our results suggest a need for a standardised and mandated policy to mitigate issues with MAPs.
KW - Cancer medicines
KW - Compassionate use
KW - Medicines access programs
KW - Pharmaceutical policy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85039724620&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.healthpol.2017.12.004
DO - 10.1016/j.healthpol.2017.12.004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85039724620
VL - 122
SP - 243
EP - 249
JO - Health Policy
JF - Health Policy
SN - 0168-8510
IS - 3
ER -