Pitfalls in Reimbursement Decisions for Oncology Drugs in South Korea: Need for Addressing the Ethical Dimensions in Technology Assessment

Abstract

This study aimed to discover to what extent ethical issues are considered in the reimbursement decision process based on health technology assessment (HTA) in Korea, especially for oncology medications. Public summary documents (PSDs) published by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) were analyzed for empirical and normative factors. For external comparison, PSDs presented by corresponding institutions of Australia and the United Kingdom were employed. Furthermore, the opinions of eight expert oncologists were obtained regarding the accountability of the evidence in PSDs. Among 7 oncology drugs, there were differences evidencebetween the PSDs from the three institutions. From an ethical viewpoint, the following matters were Health technology assessment -ethics -economic analysis -cost-effectiveness analysis -Korea

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