On 27 June 2022, APACMed held the inaugural Value-Based Market Access Symposium, with this year’s theme being “The Evolving Health Technology Assessment for Medical Devices and Diagnostics”.
The Symposium leveraged on technical expertise and real-world operating experience from government affairs and market access industry professionals across 15 APAC markets and 40 companies operating in the medical devices and diagnostics sector. Our report summarizes the insights shared to facilitate innovative, value-based market access, including in pricing, procurement, and reimbursement.
Value-based Market Access Summit: Malaysia
The APACMed Government Affairs and Market Access (GAMA) Committee, in collaboration with AmCham Malaysia, held its first country-activation event in Malaysia on 7 February 2023: Value-Based Market Access Malaysia Summit.
Shakilla Shahjihan, Co-Chair of APACMed’s GAMA Committee provided the opening remarks for the summit. She highlighted how this summit is the first in a series of in-country activation events, to leverage best practices from the region even as we work together to address the unique and highly complex challenges for each health system. Given that sustainable healthcare financing is on the Malaysian policy agenda, it is an opportune time to bring together stakeholders across the health care system to share perspectives on what value truly means to each stakeholder.
The event featured a keynote address by Datuk Dr Kuljit Singh, President of the Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia, who discussed what value means for the patient and the importance of a multi-stakeholder value-based framework to maximize patient outcomes. Datuk highlighted the increased strain on the healthcare infrastructure due to inflation & supply chain disruptions, in addition existing challenges, and emphasized the need to be innovative & look beyond the existing models of care delivery while keeping affordability of healthcare in mind. There is a need for the public & private sector to partner together to support timely patient access to medical devices.
Ms Glenda Teng, Head of the APACMed Government Affairs and Market Access Committee and Dr Feras Mahdi, Senior Principal and Head of MedTech APAC Regional HQ & SEA at IQVIA, presented the regional learnings from the APACMed Value-based Market Access Symposium Summary Report, published in partnership with IQVIA. Key messages from the paper include patient centricity as being vital to the definition of “value” and the need for collaboration between stakeholders to facilitate a value-based healthcare framework that is transparent, unique to MedTech, and supported by real-world evidence and learnings from across the region.
The regional insights from the paper guided a panel discussion. Mr Arif Fahim, Regional Director of Global Health Economics and Reimbursement, APAC at Abbott, moderated the discussion and set the stage by highlighting the uniqueness of the MedTech industry, where the “customer” is not yet well-defined, highlighting the user, consumer, buyer and payor as different stakeholders. Industry strives to create a value proposition that serves the needs of all these stakeholders, meet the needs of resource-constrained healthcare systems in the region, and ultimately deliver high quality care solutions to physicians and patients.
Dr Izzuna Ghazali, Deputy Director of the Medical Development Division and Head of the Malaysian Health Technology Assessment Section at the Ministry of Health of Malaysia, provided her perspective on the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) landscape in Malaysia, highlighting that the HTA system in Malaysia not only includes cost effectiveness analysis, but also includes various dimensions of value, such as safety, efficacy, impact on patient outcome measures, social acceptability and additional infrastructure requirements.
Mr Antony Lee, Chairman of the General Insurance Association of Malaysia and AmCham Malaysia and CEO of AIG Malaysia, provided the payor perspective and highlighted the need for health data collection and standardization of rates across hospitals to shift the focus from episodic cost of care to long-term cost of care. He emphasized the importance of collaboration among stakeholders towards ensuring patient access to the best quality of care, citing the MySejahtera app as a platform that was effectively used for collaboration across different stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Datuk Dr Kuljit Singh provided the healthcare provider perspective to value-based healthcare, bringing attention to technology and public private partnerships as tools to help overcome manpower constraints and unmet needs in the healthcare ecosystem. The discussion concluded by reiterating patient centricity and the need for collaboration amongst all stakeholders to drive the shift towards value-based healthcare in Malaysia.
The programme was concluded by Mr Antony Lee, followed by a networking tea-break.The Summit marks the first of a series of country-activation events led by the APACMed Government Affairs and Market Access Committee, applying the regional insights from the Summary Report to the country-level market access issues (such as pricing, procurement, reimbursement) within Asia Pacific.
