Summit brings together medicines industry, academia and patient groups ahead of health reform

11 November 2022: Yesterday the HTA Summit brought together industry, academia and patient representatives to share ideas and discuss solutions after the Government announced the start of the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Review.

CEO of Medicines Australia, Elizabeth de Somer, said the HTA Summit – organised by ISPOR and HTAnalysts – opened the dialogue on challenges in Australia’s health system.

“Our current system is too slow for today’s medicines, and too slow for today’s patients,” said Ms de Somer.

“The upcoming HTA Review is a chance to alter Australia’s approach and speed up the time it takes for a medicine to be listed on the PBS and made available to patients.

“The HTA Summit successfully made space for diverse and frank conversations with  HTA experts about the causes of delay and the importance of patient experiences.

“Partnership in the HTA Review will be critical to its success.

“This was an important step in engaging with a wide range of stakeholders about the upcoming HTA Review.

“As we have seen during COVID-19, collaboration leads to better outcomes and we must harness that collaboration at every opportunity to improve our systems now and for future generations,” Ms de Somer said.

The HTA Summit agenda can be found here and was organised by HTAnalysts in collaboration with ISPOR Australia Chapter. Funding for the event was provided by the Oncology Industry Taskforce.

Medicines Australia provided HTA Review discussion papers ahead of the HTA Summit, which outline conversation starters on key topics from the medicine industry perspective.

Key themes and outputs from the HTA Summit will inform a future white paper.

-ENDS-

For further information or media interviews, please contact:
Chrystianna Moran – 0424 995 118 / chrystianna.moran@medicinesaustralia.com.au
Margaret Cresswell – 0410 456 293 / margaret.cresswell@medicinesaustralia.com.au