Today marks the one-year anniversary that Health Minister Mark Butler described Australia's current health technology assessment processes as "clunky" and acknowledged as "a fact" that people are dying waiting for funded access to treatment.
Mr Butler made the statements during an interview with 3AW's Neil Mitchell in response to questions about the delay in funding Janssen's CAR-T therapy, CARVYKTI (ciltacabtagene autoleucel), for adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.
In making the admission, Mr Butler became the first Australian health minister to acknowledge the link between HTA decision-making and avoidable deaths publicly.
Yet, one year later, CARVYKTI remains unfunded and not even recommended.
The Medical Services Advisory Committee responded to Mr Butler's savage critique by deferring an outcome on CARVYKTI at its November 2023 meeting. It is almost two years since the committee first considered and did not recommend the therapy.
According to the published outcome of the November meeting, the committee "accepted" the clinical claim that CARVYKTI "had superior effectiveness in terms of durable survival outcomes and a different safety profile compared with standard of care therapies."
In the interview one year ago today, Mr Butler said, "We're living through what is a turbo-charged period of discovery".
"You know, it is frustrating, we are getting so many applications in a period that is genuinely a turbo-charged period of discovery. We can't get through all of them as quickly as we would like. But I think having that arms-length expert assessment process has served us very well for decades. Now I'm not sure it's completely fit for purpose now, given the nature of the technological developments we’re getting, and we're looking at that for the long-term, but at the moment I think it is serving Australia well."
"It is a fact. I don't want to say it, I don’t like saying it, because none of us like considering this," said Mr Butler in response to a question. "We've got people - you do accept people are dying who do need not die, do you accept that?" asked Mr Mitchell.
CAR-T therapies are jointly funded by the Commonwealth, states and territories through the National Health Reform Agreement. The Health Technology Assessment Review considered pathways for reimbursing cell and gene therapies, including CAR-T.
Its options paper proposed minor changes, including a "nationally cohesive approach" to assessing NHRA-funded therapies, timelines to ensure the consistent adoption of therapies and formal horizon scanning.
The minister did not respond to questions about the anniversary of his comments.
