TAIPEI, Taiwan – The Third Workshop for Partnership Agreement between Taiwan and the United Kingdom on Health Technology Assessment was held May 28-29 in Taipei City to deepen bilateral exchanges as the government continues to enhance the country’s health care quality.
According to the National Health Insurance Administration under the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the event was organized in collaboration with Taiwan’s Center for Health Policy and Technology Assessment and the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
Analyzing the success of the UK’s Cancer Drugs Fund, participants exchanged views on the design logic, framework, data collection and reassessment mechanism of its managed access agreements.
During the event, NICE experts Brad Groves and Juan Yanguela shared their respective managed access agreement and health policy assessment experience, data collection strategies and communication with parties of interest, among other key topics.
The NHIA said that since cancer has remained the leading cause of death in Taiwan for many years, president Lai Ching-te is promoting a raft of policy initiatives to reduce the country’s cancer death rate by one-third of its current level by 2030.
The experience of the UK’s CDF is expected to help improve Taiwan’s systems for conditional listing of cancer drugs and related payment, the agency said, adding that the goal is to ensure cancer patients can benefit from new therapeutics as soon as possible, including the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab for a variety of cancers, selumetinib for nervous system cancers and elranatamab for multiple myeloma.
