TNMU Teachers Participated in the 4th National Forum on Medical Technology Assessment

On May 31, 2023, the 4th National Forum on Medical Technology Assessment (MTA) was held in Ukraine, organized by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine with the support of the international technical assistance project “Safe, Affordable and Efficient Medicines” — SAFEMed) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

This forum is organized under the slogan “Transition to the next level of MTA implementation.” The event was held in a mixed format. The offline part took place in the conference hall of the Radisson Blue hotel (Kyiv), where representatives of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the National Health Service of Ukraine, the State Expert Centre of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, and the pharmaceutical industry and patient organizations were invited. At the invitation of the Ministry of Health and the SAFEMed project, the Head of the Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacology of Ternopil National Medical University, Professor Oleksandra Oleschuk, took part in the event.

The online part was conducted with the help of the Zoom platform, which was joined by the teachers of TNMU Department of Management and Economics of Pharmacy and Drug Technology, Assoc. Prof Olena Pokotylo, Assist. Prof. Anastasia Dub.

Opening of the event (from left to right): Anton Voitenko (moderator), Mykhailo Babenko, Serhii Dubrov, Ben Zinner.

The opening remarks were made by Mykhailo Radutskomyi, Chairman of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on National Health, Medical Assistance and Medical Insurance; Serhii Dubrov, First Deputy Minister of Health; Mykhailo Babenko, Director of the State Expert Centre; Ben Zinner, Director of USAID’s Health Office.

During the event, three panel discussions were held and the main directions of the development of medical technology assessment in Ukraine, its practical impact on specific results in the health care system, identification of priority directions for the further development of medical technology assessment and analysis of the impact of medical technology assessment on decision-making processes were highlighted, as well as pricing negotiations (with a focus on Managed Access Agreements (MAA)).

Senior Technical Advisor of the SAFEMed project, Rabia Suju.

During the second panel discussion, which was devoted to the organization of the medical technology assessment process and the issue of creating an independent medical technology assessment agency, Professor Oleksandra Oleschuk confirmed the words of the moderator Dmytro Aleshko (“Pravovyi Alians” Company) that she, having experience since 2016 regarding the assessment of medical technologies (from clinical and economic assessment, critical assessment of conclusions (appraisal) to the decision making process) sees the future steps in the creation of a single independent agency for the evaluation of medical technologies with a properly selected highly qualified staff, taking into account the experience of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE, Great Britain). The speaker emphasized that during the decision-making procedure, various stakeholders should be involved, the negotiation procedure should be clearly prescribed, which should be transparent, understandable for everyone, patient-oriented and aimed at providing the population with innovative medicines.

Participants of the panel discussion

At the end of the forum of the USAID/SAFEMed project in Ukraine, Rebecca Kohler noted that Ukraine has achieved extraordinary success in the implementation of medical technology assessment, especially considering the conditions of war in which we are all living today. Of course, there are certain gaps that require detailed refinement, but there are promising plans that require discussion of further steps. Therefore, the guest expressed her hope that the 5th National Forum on Medical Technology Assessment will be a platform on which all the identified gaps will be successfully overcome.

The head of the USAID/SAFEMed project in Ukraine, Rebecca Cowler.

In general, the event was filled with meaningful reports of the participants, extremely relevant open questions were raised regarding the procedure and results of the MTA implementation, which aroused lively interest among all parties.

The information was provided by Professor Oleksandra Oleshchuk.