A second public consultation on the review of the HTA system will be held in January to February 2024 after more than 100 stakeholder responses were received during the first consultation earlier this year.

Low- and middle-income countries need to have the know-how, capability and capacity to produce mRNA vaccines, from concept, design and testing through to manufacturing and registration, a conference heard this week.

On the back of a successful pilot of early consultations with patients, the European Medicines Agency is extending the initiative so that patient and health care professional groups can give valuable input in areas such as unmet needs, clinical trial endpoints and expectations for future treatments.

Building new local manufacturing facilities raises issues such as regulatory complexity, the supply of raw materials and what to do with “ever-warm” production sites outside health crisis situations, a conference heard this week.

An updated UK PharmaScan platform is to be delivered within the first three years of the new voluntary drug pricing scheme, with companies agreeing to provide “timely, accurate and comprehensive information” for all their medicines in development.

The UK’s new voluntary drug pricing and access deal is a “paradigm shift” that will see companies paying different levels of rebates depending on their product mix, with higher payments on older medicines making headroom for growth in newer drugs, according to one lawyer.