Norway

Norway’s pharmaceutical industry association says it is waiting to hear from the ministry of health about how it will address the country’s low willingness to pay for innovation.

Nearly 50 medicines are now included in a Nordic pilot that relaxes language requirements on packaging to help improve access to essential hospital treatments.

Standing “shoulder to shoulder” can help alleviate difficult global market conditions, according to the Joint Nordic HTA Body.

Celltrion has won the race to launch the first biosimilar to Novartis/Roche’s blockbuster treatment for chronic spontaneous urticaria and severe persistent allergic asthma in Europe.

The firm is concentrating on its Keytruda combo for head and neck cancer after being abandoned by Roche and boardroom battles.

The merger with a fellow Norwegian biotech comes a few months after its lead asset, bemcentinib, bit the dust.

Too many “uninformative” drug trials fail to justify the excessively high prices of many medicines, while there is too much evidentiary uncertainty in European pricing and reimbursement systems, warned Anja Schiel from Norway’s NOMA.

European health systems already pay far too much for new medicines and payers will not accept higher prices to compensate for lower US prices, according to Anja Schiel, from NOMA, the Norwegian health technology assessment body.

Faced with going out of business after repeated Phase II fails in a variety of tumor types for its investigational universal cancer vaccine, Norway’s Ultimovacs has been saved by compatriot Zelluna.

Drug companies are being invited to participate in a new pilot project that the five Nordic countries will run to see if they can improve the availability of certain critical products that are used in hospitals.

European cross-border HTA collaborations have much to learn from each other to keep drug prices from rising unfairly, say Nordic health technology assessment experts. Talks on HTA collaborations outside Europe are also underway.

European cross-country HTA collaborations have much to learn from each other to keep prices from rising unfairly, Nordic health technology assessment experts say, adding that talks on collaboration are also ongoing with HTA bodies outside the continent.