56
EDITION Nº
Infarmed will send more data
about the use of medicines to hospitals
The INFARMED will proactively disseminate more information to hospitals, in order to guarantee a more efficient use of drugs. For this reason, hospitals and health professionals will have access to more comprehensive information about the evaluation of medicinal products and their performance related to medicine consumption. This was one of the measures announced by the INFARMED president of the Executive Board, Maria do Céu Machado, during the follow-up meeting of the public hospitals, organised by the Central Administration of the Health System (ACSS).
In addition to the benchmarking data already shared on the official website, the goal is to develop and provide a dashboard with core areas such as the biological drugs use, HIV treatment or antibiotics.
Precisely in this area, hospitals are reducing the number of doses over the last years, which is a positive trend. There seems to be an effort to use more generic drugs and biossimilars.
The Minister of Health, Adalberto Campos Fernandes, closed the session with words of "recognition to hospitals", stating that “hospitals are more problem-solving, more cohesive and more at peace."
Infarmed concludes the evaluation
of 30 medicines in 2017
The INFARMED concluded 30 separate processes for the evaluation of innovative medicines in the first half of 2017. 14 of those were approved and 16 were dismissed or closed in response to the request of the companies. The volume of approvals from the same period (9) also exceeded the first six months of 2016.
The results for the first half of the year are in line with the 2017 target: to maintain or exceed the number of publicly financed molecules in 2016. Last year, Portugal achieved a new record of 51 approved innovative medicines.
At the present, there are 30 processes in the final stages of negotiation, and it is expected to be completed in the next few weeks.
More than 17 thousand treatments
approved for hepatitis C patients
The National Health Service (NHS) approved 17591 treatments for hepatitis C patients in two and a half years. According to data from the Hepatitis C Portal, managed by the INFARMED, 11792 treatments have already begun.
The cure rate is now of 96.5%. Only 241 of the 6680 patients who completed treatments, were not healed.Two more drugs joined the funded molecules for use in hepatitis C in the last year.
Infarmed will monitor effectiveness
in oncology drugs and medical devices
The INFARMED will work in partnership with the National Cancer Registry (RON) in the scope of monitoring the effectiveness of medicinal products and medical devices in the cancer area.
To meet this goal, the INFARMED will collect data and information in the context of clinical practice only.
RON is a centralized register of data from all the diagnosed and treated cancer patients in the country. In addition to the treatments, this registry will cover all the activity from the institutions, such as screenings, epidemiological surveillance and research.
The legislation that regulates the RON, was published on the 14th of july and shall enter into force on the 1st January 2018.
INFARMED – Autoridade Nacional do Medicamento e Produtos de Saúde, I.P.
Parque de Saúde de Lisboa - Avenida do Brasil, 53, 1749-004 Lisboa - Portugal
Telef: +351 217 987 100 | Fax: +351 217 987 316 | E-mail: Infarmed@Infarmed.pt