Innovation funding

The Swiss innovation agency, InnoSuisse, reminds that the deadline for the application for financing of truly innovative projects is May 20, 2019. The Swiss Federal Council has ensured additional funding of CHF 24 million for 2019 and 2020 for the “Impulse digitalization programme.”

The Academic Health Science Networks in partnership with the Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI) launched a report of the MedTech landscape aimed at accelerating the entry, adoption, and spread of innovations for the benefit of patients and commercial success.

The 13 innovations joining the NHS Innovation Accelerator were announced on March 5, 2019, as part of an event to launch the fourth year of this award-winning national accelerator.

On the 16th of February of 2019, the approval for financing of WISE CRT system in a framework of “forfait innovation” program was released in the Official French Gazette. This financing is provided for the 48-months period; it includes the amount of €25,600 and cannot be combined with other benefits. It is fully covered by the compulsory health insurance schemes.

Norway established in 2013 a framework “New Method” for the introduction of innovations into the health care system through either a national or hospital-based health technology assessment. In this framework, all innovations should undergo HTA before being funded. Currently, 13 ongoing mini-HTA projects are conducted in Norway: robotic-assisted procedures, microwave ablation, and tonsillectomy devices, among others.

The Dutch Healthcare Authority (NZa) wants to contribute to stimulating the right care in the right place by making it possible to deploy e-health applications more broadly. In 2019 NZa will examine the possibilities for declaring e-health with the focus on district nursing and long-term care. Also, a large part of the e-health projects is in the pilot phase and the Dutch ‘Care for Innovation’ organization developed a step-by-step plan for a systematic approach for e-health introduction.

Promising care must find its way to patients more quickly through inclusion in the basic health insurance. That is why the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport has adjusted the promising care with the new subsidy scheme. Dutch Healthcare Institute (Zorginstituut Nederland, ZIN) carries out the scheme in collaboration with the Dutch Organization for Health Research and Development (Nederlandse organisatie voor gezondheidsonderzoek en zorginnovatie, ZonMw). The scheme will replace existing procedure with conditional reimbursement of medical technologies.

In January 2019, the Institute for the Hospital Remuneration System (InEK) has published the of medical devices and procedures approved for innovation funding (NUB). Out of 709 applications for drugs and technologies, 180 (25%) received the positive status 1, and 69 of them were the requests for the medical technologies.

In October of 2018, InEK has published the list of the devices, previously (in 2018) eligible for innovation funding via NUB, and which will be integrated into DRG payment system since 2019. Only two devices will be transferred into the DRG catalogue.

In 2019 the regulation for “conditional reimbursement to the basic insurance” (Voorwaardelijke toelating tot het basispakket) will be replaced by the Subsidy Scheme for Promising Care. The goal is to make promising treatments, medical technologies, tools and medicines available for patients even faster. The Dutch Healthcare Institute is preparing for the implementation of the new subsidy scheme in the coming months.

Hundreds of patients each year will benefit from fourteen new innovative treatments that will now be routinely available. These treatments include several devices and procedures: keraprosthesis for corneal blindness, left atrial appendage occlusion, selective dorsal rhizotomy and total pancreatectomy with islet transplantation for chronic pancreatitis.

MedTech Europe has published a paper with reflections on how to facilitate the dialogue between industry and funding and reimbursement decision makers, in order to create an innovation-friendly environment for healthcare in Europe. MTRC report on innovative payment schemes is cited in the paper.