Background New medicines are increasingly being identified as efficacious across multiple indications. The impact of current pricing and reimbursement policies on launch decisions across these indications remains unclear. Objective This paper, first, maps marketing authorisation and HTA coverage recommendation sequences of multi-indication medicines across Germany, France, England, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and the USA, and, second, evaluates the clinical characteristics, clinical development time and coverage recommendation time of multi-indication medicines, drawing comparisons between the first and subsequent indications of an approved molecule. Methods Medicine approvals by the Food and Drug Administration between 2009–2019 were screened to identify multi-indication products with approved oncology indications. Data on clinical trial characteristics, clinical performance and HTA outcomes were extracted from publicly available regulatory approval and HTA reports. Results Relative to subsequent indications, first indications were more likely to receive conditional marketing authorisation, have an orphan designation, have a single arm phase II pivotal trial and lower MCBS score. Subsequent indications had faster HTA coverage recommendation times in England and Canada. While the majority of first indications received HTA coverage recommendations across all settings, the proportion of subsequent indications with HTA coverage recommendations was lower and uptake varied considerably across settings. Conclusions Discordance in the value of first versus subsequent indications can pose major challenges in systems that define price based on the initial indication. Current pricing and reimbursement systems generate significant fragmentation in the approval and availability of multi-indication products across settings.

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All data sources used are publicly available. Regulatory agency websites were screened to identify marketing authorisation reports. This included the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and Health Canada. HTA agency websites were screened to identify HTA recommendations. This included the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), the Haute Authorité de Santé, (HAS), the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), and the Institut national d'excellence en santé et en services sociaux (INESSS).

Background New pharmaceuticals are increasingly being developed for use across multiple indications. Countries across Europe and North America have adopted a range of different approaches to capture differences in the value of individual indications. Objective The three aims of this study were (i) to review the price-setting practice over the past 5 years for multi-indication products across England, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, Canada and the USA; (ii) to assess the impact of current practices on launch strategy; and (iii) to identify issues in the implementation of indication-based pricing. Methods Ten current and former members of health insurance organisations, healthcare payer organisations or health technology assessment agencies with expertise on pharmaceutical purchasing were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews. Interview transcripts were imported into NVivo 12 for thematic analysis. Results The majority of countries studied require full assessments upon launch of a new indication. Five different approaches to pricing were identified: weighted pricing, differential discounting, mandatory discount, price anchoring and free pricing. Manufacturers show a tendency to launch first in niche indications with high unmet need to achieve a high price. Stakeholders from England, France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland consider their current system fit for purpose, while other countries expressed concern over the administrative burden of monitoring products at indication level. Conclusions Given the high administrative burden, it is questionable whether indication-based pricing would provide additional public benefit above and beyond current weighted dynamic single pricing and differential discounting practices for multi-indication products.