Market access to new anticancer medicines for children and adolescents with cancer in Europe

Background and aims: There is an alarming delay in Europe for anticancer medicines becoming accessible for children. Following a paediatric European Union marketing authorisation, national Health Technology Assessment (HTA) agencies evaluate effectiveness, and safety of medicines to support decision on their cost and reimbursement. This study (a SIOPE Access to Medicines project) aimed to evaluate how these HTA evaluations take place for anticancer medicines indicated for paediatric use in Europe and to explore where the delays for market access originate. Methods: We obtained HTA reports from the public domain for nine European countries for blinatumomab, dinutuximab beta and tisagenlecleucel. We evaluated the time elapsed between marketing authorisation for a paediatric indication and a national HTA decision and the nature of the decision. Results: Out of 23 HTA decisions (four countries without blinatumomab report), 18 were positive, two with restrictions, three negative. For blinatumomab, tisagenlecleucel and dinutuximab beta, the median time to an HTA decision after regulatory approval for paediatric use was 353 days (range 193-751), 141 days (range 77-517) and 515 days (range 0-780), respectively, with variability between countries. Dinutuximab beta and tisagenlecleucel were first introduced in children, but did not result in shorter time to HTA decision. For blinatumomab, marketing authorisation followed 1008 days after the indication in adults, with HTA & nbsp;applications submitted a median of 167 days later, and a recommendation after 145 days. Conclusions: This study reveals ample variability in HTA decision making in nine European Union countries. Collaboration and alignment of required evidence is needed to facilitate robust scientific HTA assessments, also considering methodological challenges in paediatric oncology. & ordf; 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study reveals significant variability in HTA decision making for pediatric anticancer medicines across nine European countries, highlighting the need for collaboration and alignment to facilitate robust scientific assessments, taking into account methodological challenges in pediatric oncology.