Coverage with evidence development for medicines with insufficient evidence of clinical benefit: experience from the Netherlands

Abstract

Objectives: Since 2019 the Dutch National Healthcare Institute has operated a coverage with evidence development (CED) program for specific products with insufficient evidence of their clinical benefit: orphan medicinal products (OMPs), medicines with conditional marketing authorization (CMA), and medicines with marketing authorization under exceptional circumstances (AEC). The objective of this study is to give an overview of this program and reflect on learnings, challenges, and opportunities. Methods: This study is a narrative policy review of the Dutch CED program and describes the different phases and stakeholder involvement. Additionally, an overview of the medicines included in the CED program is presented and put in an international perspective. Results: The CED program consists of four phases: candidate prescreening, research protocol drafting, signing of process agreement and financial agreement, and controlled access. Stakeholders are involved intensively throughout the process. Since 2019, six medicines have entered the program. The program is used to fill different evidence gaps for various types of medicines and indications. In other countries, these medicines are often included in restricted reimbursement programs. Conclusions: The CED program is gathering clinical effectiveness data while providing patient access to OMPs, CMA, and AEC products. Important facilitating factors for the program were identified, including the involvement of all stakeholders, the only-in-research approach of data gathering, and the case-by-case evidence generation requirements and duration. Continuous evaluation is needed as the program does not yet include the expected number of medicines, and no conclusion can be drawn so far on the usefulness of the data collection.