Australia Considers New 'Bridging Fund' Among 50 Recommendations For HTA Reform

Industry says it is ready to work with the government on the recommendations from a major review of Australia’s health technology assessment system that covers areas such as discount rate reductions and setting up a separate budgetary allocation to temporarily subsidize access to certain drugs.

Australia is looking to reduce wait times for access to affordable drugs • Source: Shutterstock

The Australian government is reviewing 50 recommendations for reforming the country’s health technology assessment (HTA) system, one of which involves setting up a “bridging funding program” to provide early, temporary subsidized access to certain promising, time-critical therapies.

Key Takeaways
  • A 236-page report on the most comprehensive review of Australia’s HTA system in over 30 years has provided 50 recommendations for improvements for the government to consider.

  • One of the recommendations suggests establishing a bridging funding program for therapies of high added therapeutic value that address high unmet clinical need.

  • The report says that the government should also support a reduction of the base case discount rate to no lower than 3

The government should also design a framework that supports the use of different contract and health technology funding mechanisms in addition to the standard “price per unit” approach, and consider exempting

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