Innovative treatments and solutions can only deliver benefits when patients have access to them. RAND Europe works to provide practical and actionable recommendations for improving the access and uptake of beneficial innovations, and for nurturing healthcare systems where this can happen in a safe and scalable way.
Enabling the adoption of healthcare innovations
The UK's NHS is under pressure to meet the growing and changing demand for healthcare services with limited resources. Innovation provides opportunities to respond creatively and effectively to growing demands on healthcare systems. We helped policymakers to identify actions that can help build more receptive innovation environments in the NHS.
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Project
We engaged with nearly 700 individuals and reviewed the international literature to identify key actions to improve the conditions for developing and accessing innovations in the NHS. These actions seek to ensure requisite skills and capabilities for innovation, support appropriate incentives and accountabilities, create the needed information and evidence flows, nurture coordinated relationships and networks, enhance funding and commissioning landscapes, and support effective patient and public involvement. This work informed innovation-related decisionmaking in the Department of Health and Social Care (England), the Office for Life Sciences and NHS England.
Enabling regulatory innovation
RAND researchers provide thought leadership on emerging regulatory challenges and opportunities associated with technologies that have the potential to improve health and wellbeing. See our recent commentary on software as a medical device and on the microbiome.
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Commentary
Effective regulatory landscapes play a key role in facilitating timely access to healthcare innovations. We explore key regulatory and policy issues that can support the adoption of new and emerging technologies for patient benefit.
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Commentary
Microbiome research and development may lead to an increasing number of therapeutic and well-being breakthroughs. But regulating microbiota-related products poses a challenge that could require innovative approaches.
Exploring innovative payment models
Those who pay for new medicines, diagnostics and vaccines are increasingly interested in paying for an outcome in the real world. Our recent work has tackled this important issue and considered when outcome-based payments may be appropriate to use and what is needed to make them a reality in the NHS.
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Commissioned by Cancer Research UK, we examined the feasibility of using outcome-based payment models as an innovative approach to paying for cancer medicines in England’s National Health Service. We identified the types of outcomes that patients value and found that outcome-based payment schemes are most desirable when there is uncertainty about outcomes even after clinical trials.
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Commentary
Given the growing pressures on health care systems globally and the need for innovative approaches to financing health care, the time may be ripe to develop a robust evidence base and share learning on fintech-enabled approaches that could support universal health coverage agendas and healthier and more stable societies.
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Project
To prepare for the implementation of a pilot scheme to pay for cancer drugs based on achieved outcomes, researchers addressed issues identified in the first phase of research, such as the quality and completeness of real-world data on key patient outcomes.
Understanding fee systems for medicine assessment and pharmacovigilance
Ensuring that medicines are safe and effective requires them to go through robust assessment processes prior to their approval. It also requires that medicines are monitored for their safety after they have been licensed for use — this is the practice of pharmacovigilance. RAND Europe has helped policymakers understand the effectiveness and efficiency of the fee system that is used for medicine assessment and pharmacovigilance in Europe.
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The EMA has a fee system to ensure a sound financial basis for its assessments of medicines and other pharmacovigilance activities at the EU level. Funded by the European Commission, we evaluated EMA’s fee system and identified what worked well and what could be improved. Some areas for improvement relate to tackling challenges associated with its complexity and achieving appropriate degrees of flexibility.
Understanding the financial landscape that supports life sciences research and development
Governments recognise the importance of the life sciences industry for addressing major population health needs as well as for bringing economic growth and employment opportunities. RAND Europe is working with partners to better understand the financing of pharmaceutical research and development, all of which has implications for policymaking to support life sciences innovation and for ensuring affordable and equitable access to new medicines.
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In a study commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, RAND Europe collaborated with SiRM and LEK Consulting to enrich the evidence base on how medicines R&D is financed and how this may evolve in the future. This is important to enable governments to make more informed policy decisions that optimise value for their citizens, while at the same time appropriately reimbursing innovators.
Accelerating access to innovation
Timely access to healthcare innovation is key for achieving desired patient outcomes, saving lives and supporting effective healthcare systems. Our work has examined international efforts to support more rapid access to innovation, with a goal of understanding what works and identifying the strengths and limitations of different policy incentives.
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Project
We helped the UK Government identify and learn from international efforts to accelerate access to medicines, medical devices and healthcare technologies by identifying what works both in theory and in practice. These insights informed the government’s Accelerated Access Review.
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Commentary
Given the growing pressures on health care systems globally and the need for innovative approaches to financing health care, the time may be ripe to develop a robust evidence base and share learning on fintech-enabled approaches that could support universal health coverage agendas and healthier and more stable societies.
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Commentary
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that rapid innovation in the face of public health emergencies is possible. In only 15 months, 15 vaccines have been approved or authorized for use in various parts of the world. What thinking is required to support uniform rapid rollout for future public health emergencies?
Diversity, equity and inclusion in innovation
RAND is committed to advancing thinking on tackling inequalities in biomedical and health research and innovation.
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Commentary
For health care innovations to have the fairest and broadest possible benefit to society, efforts could be made to attend to all stages of the innovation pathway to identify opportunities to mitigate biases through diversity, equality, and inclusion.
