Joint Medicines Policy Conference 2011

Page last updated: 23 September 2011

The third Joint Medicines Policy Conference, hosted by the Department of Health and Ageing and Medicines Australia, was held on the 30th and 31st August 2011.

The Joint Medicines Policy Conference illustrated the ongoing collaboration between the Australian Government and Medicines Australia to meet the challenges of providing Australians with ongoing access to safe and effective medicines at a cost individuals and the community as a whole can afford. Access should occur in a framework which promotes the Quality Use of Medicines and at the same time encourages a responsible and viable Australian medicines industry.

This year’s theme —Health Technology Assessment for Future Generations— focused on the challenges facing the Australian Government, the medicines industry and consumers in ensuring a sustainable Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that meets the needs of all Australians.

The tools of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) have long been used by Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee to assess the clinical and cost effectiveness of new medicines. This conference invited debate on how HTA will need to evolve to meet the challenges posed by emerging technologies, many of which will be highly specialised, targeted to individuals rather than whole populations, and potentially high cost.

A unifying theme for the conference was ‘value’. One of the tasks of HTA is to help determine the value of a medicine to the Australian community. A number of sessions explored challenges in determining such value both at the methodological and policy levels.

Other sessions focused on ways of ensuring that the values and preferences of the Australian community are properly reflected.

Finally, this conference provided an opportunity to debate how decisions made today about a medicine’s value may come to shape the drug development process itself and thus influence the health care options available to future generations.

Presentations:

• Outcomes of the 2008 Conference and Work of the Access to Medicines Working Group (Powerpoint 356 KB),  (PDF 119 KB)
  Mr David Learmonth, Deputy Secretary, Department of Health and Ageing,
  Mr Will Delaat, Chairman, Medicines Australia
• Health Technology Assessment for future generations (Powerpoint 860 KB),  (PDF 349 KB)
  Prof Lloyd Sansom AO, Emeritus Professor, Division of Health and Sciences, UniSA
• Future Challenges to Health Technology Assessment: Data Requirements for High Cost, Targeted Therapies (Powerpoint 1.6 MB),  (PDF 522 KB)
  Prof Kathryn A. Phillips, Professor of Health Economics and Health Services Research, University of California, San Francisco
• Future challenges to HTA (Powerpoint 4.2 MB),  (PDF 880 KB)
  Prof Robyn Ward, Clinical Associate Dean, Prince of Wales Clinical School, University of NSW
• Ethics in Drug Developmental Processes – Societal Perspectives (Powerpoint 2 MB),  (PDF 783 KB)
  Ms Jennifer Doggett, Fellow, Centre for Policy Development
• Sensitive health information and privacy (Powerpoint 3.2 MB),  (PDF 1.5 MB)
  Mr Malcolm Crompton, Managing Director, Information Integrity Solutions P/L
• Boosting policy-relevant research using linked administrative data (Powerpoint 5.7 MB),  (PDF 500 KB)
  Prof Louisa Jorm, Foundation Professor of Population Health, University of Western Sydney
• Looking Back and Looking Forward - How did we get here? (Powerpoint 1.3 MB),  (PDF 699 KB)
  Prof Lloyd Sansom AO, Emeritus Professor, Division of Health Sciences, University of South Australia
• Why documentation is relevant in implementing the NMP (Powerpoint 904 KB),  (PDF 234 KB)
  Dr Ross Maxwell, Procedural Rural Doctor (Queensland), and Prescribing Expert on the National Medicines Policy
• The promise of personalised medicine. What happens when we’re all special? (Powerpoint 13 MB),  (PDF 681 KB)
  Ms Deborah Waterhouse, General Manager, GlaxoSmithKline Australia and New Zealand
• The Influence of HTA in Shaping Drug Development: Investment Implications (Powerpoint 1 MB),  (PDF 383 KB)
  Dr Steve J. Romano, Senior Vice President, Pfizer, New York
• Innovation Dilemma - the case of antimicrobials (Powerpoint 1.4 MB),  (PDF 383 KB)
  Prof John Turnidge, Clinical Director of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases for SA Pathology, Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Adelaide
• Valuing innovation: HTA practice and the impact for future medicines (Powerpoint 742 KB),  (PDF 264 KB)
  Mr Mendel Grobler, Director, Patient Access, Pfizer Australia