Whitepapers

The market for precision medicine has grown exponentially and continues to grow. Precision medicine considers individual patient characteristics such as their genes, environments and lifestyles to provide tailored treatment options. In this article, we explore the key areas relevant to the economic evaluation of precision medicines and offer practical modelling recommendations based on our experience.

Therapies designed to target cancers with specific molecular signatures have reshaped the landscape of oncologic drug development.1 As the next generation of tumour-agnostic therapies make their way through clinical trials, we should be asking ourselves what we can do to prepare for the upcoming challenge of reimbursement in this space, and what lessons can be learnt from the experience of existing therapies. Over the coming months, we will provide recommendations from our own experience and a review of the experiences of the tropomyosin receptor kinase (TRK) inhibitors larotrectinib and entrectinib to learn how to overcome the common challenges in this space. Here, in the second of our five-paper series, we focus on the difficulties of estimating the effectiveness of tumour-agnostic treatments in practice.

The following is the first in what will be a serialized sequence of contributions from Jeff Bockman and Joel Sandler, in which we discuss next-wave biologics (proteins, cell therapies) and associated platform technologies including diagnostics that collectively appear poised to upend our entire approach to the management of cancer. Each subsequent contribution will be informed both by our understanding of emerging technologies and firsthand discussions with many of the leading innovator companies developing them. Companies of the likes of Tidal/Sanofi, Aleta, Obsidian, Abintus, Spotlight, Strand, and Xyphos/Astellas. We’ve spoken with them all, and while each offers a unique vision of the future, common themes are beginning to emerge.

As the UK continues to define a new regulatory and access environment post-Brexit, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is undertaking a timely review of the methods of health technology evaluation.