The European Union Joint Clinical Assessment (JCA) process aligns with the regulatory process to promote faster patient access. The PICO (population, intervention, comparator, and outcome) scoping for the JCA must occur before the regulatory process concludes. The risk of indication change during this period is one of the concerns for the success of the JCA process. We investigated the frequency and type of changes that are made to proposed indications and examined how such changes could impact the PICO scoping for JCA.

Twenty-seven recently approved oncology and 15 Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMP) products were included. Observed indication changes were categorized into editorial or population changes population changes were graded based on the anticipated impact on JCA scope depending on their nature.

The majority of products had only editorial changes between proposed and approved indications (67 percent). Once amended, it was common for the indicated population to be narrowed, and rare for it to be broadened. The most common change observed was the shift to a later treatment line. The greatest risk for PICO rescoping would be when new populations would have been added, or new subpopulations or subgroups would have been omitted from the initial scope.

The impact on JCA scope depends on the proposed indication wording and how the PICO scoping would have been conducted. Rescoping warrants a considered decision, and to mitigate the risk of delays, dialogue between the assessors and the developer is recommended for informed decision-making.

The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) of medicines is performed separately at the country level with some differences, but Italy, France, and Germany have implemented price and reimbursement systems strongly focused on the Added Therapeutic Value (ATV). This study investigates the level of agreement on ATV assessments by Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco (AIFA), Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS), and Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss (G-BA).

A database was created collecting all information about drugs with innovativeness status requests in Italy from July 2017 to December 2022 and populated with the corresponding HAS and G-BA ATV assessments. The primary comparative analysis was conducted by grouping the ATV ratings into “higher added value” and “lower or no added value”, while a secondary analysis considered the Italian innovativeness status as a criterion to include the quality of evidence assessment. The concordance between ATV assessments was investigated through percentage agreement and unweighted Cohen k-value.

189 medicines/indications were included. The greatest agreement was found when comparing G-BA versus HAS (82 percent; k = 0.61, substantial agreement). Lower levels of agreements were observed for AIFA versus HAS and AIFA versus G-BA (respectively 52 percent; k = 0.17 and 57 percent; k = 0.25). The secondary analysis led to a reconciliation to moderate agreement for AIFA versus HAS (72 percent; k = 0.45) and AIFA versus G-BA (74 percent; k = 0.47).

A high degree of concordance between HTA organizations is reached when considering jointly ATV and quality of evidence, suggesting that the system is extensively mature to make a Joint Clinical Assessment, avoiding duplications and reducing access inequalities.