Horizon Scanning for pharmaceuticals and effective health care programming: 2 years' experience at the Italian Medicines Agency.

The Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) developed Horizon Scanning (HS) methodology to address programming and sustainability challenges posed by accelerating pharmaceutical innovation and increasing costs. From July 2018 to June 2020, 563 new potential treatments (new medicines and new indications of existing medicines) with an expected impact in 2020-2022 were identified. In this review, we assess and discuss these HS results, including medicine characteristics related to higher prioritization scores, such as clinical areas of major development. After exclusions because of the selection process, 213 (40.6%) new potential treatments were included in the prioritization tool; 25 (11.7%) were shown to be possibly associated with a major impact on healthcare systems (HCSs) according to overall prioritization criteria. Lessons learned from the process led to HS system improvements.
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