UPCOMING CHANGES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF NAMED PATIENT-BASED MEDICINES

A significant number of medications in Hungary are reimbursed through national social insurance. Patients undergoing oncology treatment(s) often must apply for certain drugs or therapies which are not financed by the National Health Insurance Fund of Hungary (hereinafter: “NEAK”) once they have exhausted all publicly funded treatment options. In these situations, patients along with their physicians can submit a named patient-based application and request reimbursement for treatments which are otherwise not reimbursed by NEAK.

On October 19, 2022, at a conference held by the Hungarian Health Economics Association (hereinafter: “META”), Judit Bidló, the Deputy Director General of NEAK announced that they had plans to reduce cases where the necessary treatment for patients depended on the process of the assessment for named patient-based requests. The announcement further noted that NEAK would like to ensure that more patient-based treatment options will be included in the reimbursed category, reducing NEAK’s administrative burden allocated to the review of these applications.

Between January of 2022, and October 2022, NEAK had processed more than 21,000 named patient-based applications. NEAK is expecting that pharmaceutical companies will submit their new drug reimbursement applications by the end of January 2023, in return of which NEAK is committed to process them in 90 days.

Named patient-based applications should only be submitted if there are no other reimbursed treatment options. Once reimbursed treatment options have been exhausted, treatment providers are required to submit a detailed application through an online portal and explain why they elected the non-reimbursed treatment, and what is the expected outcome of the desired treatment.