Background: Price setting and reimbursement decisions regarding drugs are competence of individual member states in Europe. These decisions involve important trade-offs between social, ethical, clinical and economic criteria. The aim of this study was to investigate the relative importance of criteria for reimbursement of oncology drugs in Belgium.
Methods: Reimbursement dossiers on oncology drugs for which reimbursement was applied between 2002 and 2013 were consulted. Multivariate logistic regression was performed.
Results: Results showed that clinical evidence and presence of alternative treatments have a significant impact on the reimbursement decisions.
Conclusions: Evidence-based medicine still plays a role in Belgian reimbursement decision-making. In order to allow transition towards value-based medicine and avoid spending money on products with limited incremental benefit, therapeutic need at patient level need to be taken into account.
Keywords: Belgium; health economics; health technology assessment; oncology; reimbursement.