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Patients at the center – Does the JCA truly embrace the patients’ voice?

Webinar panelists explore how the JCA will incorporate the patient perspective 
With just over a year to go before the Joint Clinical Assessment (JCA) is implemented, a key question remains: Will the patient voice truly be heard and given weight in the decision-making process? 

A key tenet of the JCA is to ensure faster access to innovative medicines and technologies for all patients across Europe. It seeks to achieve this by centralizing the health technology assessment of clinical evidence of new products and implementing rules to promote extensive stakeholder involvement1.   

To explore the potential challenges and opportunities the JCA presents and understand to what extent the patient perspective will be incorporated, Cencora brought together a panel of experts for an in-depth webinar discussion. The session was moderated by Herbert Altmann, Head Commercialization and Access Solutions Europe, at PharmaLex, a Cencora company. Panelists included Antonella Cardone, CEO, Cancer Patients Europe (CPE), Matias Olsen, Senior Manager, Public Affairs and Policy, European Confederation of Pharmaceutical Entrepreneurs (EUCOPE), and Casper Paardekooper, Partner, Vintura, a Cencora company.

In the lead up to the webinar, we published an article on the patient perspective. The webinar takes that discussion further and into additional areas impacting patient involvement. 

Will including the patient voice improve access to innovative medicines?
The implementation of the JCA will begin with oncology drugs and advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) in January 2025, so it is a central topic for the European cancer community, Cardone noted. Although CPE welcomes the spirit of the Health Technology Assessment Regulation (HTAR), Cardone said it is not clear when and where patients will be involved in the process, under which criteria and how patients’ input will be taken into consideration.

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