Health technology assessment of drugs for rare diseases: insights, trends, and reasons for negative recommendations from
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REVIEW
Open Access
Health technology assessment of drugs for rare diseases: insights, trends, and reasons for negative recommendations from the CADTH common drug review Ghayath Janoudi* , William Amegatse, Brendan McIntosh, Chander Sehgal and Trevor Richter
Abstract Background: A shift in biochemical research towards drugs for rare diseases has created new challenges for the pharmaceutical industry, government regulators, health technology assessment agencies, and public and private payers. In this article, we aim to comprehensively review, characterize, identify possible trends, and explore reasons for negative reimbursement recommendations in submissions made to the Common Drug Review (CDR) for drugs for rare diseases (DRD) at the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), a publicly funded pan-Canadian health technology assessment agency. A public database (cadth.ca) was screened to identify DRD submissions to CDR. A diseases prevalence of ≤50 per 100,000 people was considered a rare disease. We calculated descriptive statistics for prevalence, study design, study size, treatment cost, reimbursement recommendation types, and reasons for negative reimbursement recommendations. Results: From 2004 to 2015, 63 of 434 submissions to the CDR were for DRD (range: 1 submission in 2005 to 10 submissions in 2013). Most (74.6%) submissions included at least one double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT). The average study size was 190 patients (range: 20 to 742). The average annual treatment cost was C$215,631 (range: $9,706 to $940,084). Reimbursement recommendations were positive for 54% of the submissions. Negative reimbursement recommendations were made due to a lack of clinical effectiveness (38.5%), insufficient evidence (30.8%), multiple reasons (23.1%), or lack of cost effectiveness/high cost (7.7%). Conclusion: The number of DRD submissions to CDR increased since 2013; from 4 to 5 per year between 2004 and 2012, to 10, 9, and 8 in 2013, 2014, and 2015 respectively. More than half of DRD submissions received positive reimbursement recommendation. Poor quality evidence and/or lack of supportive clinical evidence was at least partly responsible for a negative reimbursement recommendation in all cases. Although the average cost of DRD treatments was high, high cost was a reason for a negative reimbursement recommendation in only two (7.7%) of negative reimbursement recommendations. Keywords: Rare diseases, Orphan drugs, Technology assessment, health, Canada
Background The pipeline of drugs for rare diseases (DRD) has been increasing as biochemical research has shifted focus from blockbusters to ‘niche’ drugs [1]. While all rare diseases, by definition, affect relatively small populations, the exact number of patients affected and the extent of the severity of the condition used to define a rare disease * Correspondence: [email protected] CADTH, 865 Carling Ave., Suite 600, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8, Canada
is a matter of continuous debate [2]. The regulator in Canada, Health Canada, is yet to offi
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