Piperska Group workshop to help promote the rational prescribing of medicines in Europe
WHO
A 3-day workshop on the managed introduction of new medicines was held on 11–13 May 2015 in Warsaw, Poland. The workshop was co-organized by the Piperska Group on the rational prescribing of medicines, the Polish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Tariff System (AOTMiT) and WHO/Europe's programme on health technologies and pharmaceuticals programme (HTP). Delivered as a series of lectures and hands-on sessions on key topics relevant to health care professionals involved in medicines policy, the highly interactive workshop attracted over 80 participants from across the WHO European Region.
Among the specific topics covered were:
- principles to ensure the appropriate use of medicines;
- health technology assessment and the managed entry of new medicines including formularies and quality indicators;
- horizon scanning/forecasting and critical drug evaluation activities;
- regulatory pathways especially for biotherapeutic products including biosimilars;
- off-label use of medicines;
- critical evaluation of new medicines;
- use of databases to monitor effectiveness of and expenditure on new medicines in clinical care;
- budgets for new medicines;
- approaches to manage uncertainty in health economic submissions and evaluations;
- risk-sharing arrangements (from a payer perspective) including coverage with evidence schemes;
- factors influencing prescribing behaviour;
- prescription drug and outcome monitoring; and
- development of an essential medicines/priority list of oncology medicines.
Topics were divided into sessions, allowing participants to attend multiple sessions to maximize their exposure and learning.
Beata Małecka-Libera, Secretary of State, Ministry of Health of Poland, opened the workshop and welcomed the international nature of the meeting, reflecting on the valuable work done by AOTMiT. Wojciech Matusewicz, Chairman of the Board of AOTMiT, delivered the keynote lecture noting that the workshop coincided with the organization's 10th anniversary. Individual sessions were led by members of the Piperska Group, AOTMiT, WHO and staff of national agencies and institutions.
The HTP programme facilitated the participation of a number of Member State representatives, and helped set up bilateral discussions with participants from other countries. Participants noted the value of learning from each other in both a formal and informal manner, with exchange of experiences and opportunity to communicate directly with their peers from other countries as among the elements they valued most from the workshop.
