Oncology drug price cuts announced in Italy related to perfomance based schemes

The Financial Times reported yesterday the potential reduction of oncology drug prices in Italy starting in 2011 after an initial analysis of registry data from the outcomes based schemes implemented in Italy since 2006/2007. Italy is one of the most active markets for risk sharing agreements, and has been launching performance based risk sharing schemes in the recent years. Guido Rasi, dircetor of AIFA, the Italian drug agency stated that according to this preliminary analysis of two year data selected drugs could be reduced by 30 to 40 percent. The full data is expected to be publsihed in the next few month. Among the drugs that could be affected by the plans are in my view Tarceva, Dasatinib, Sutent and Nexavar, of all which have been subject to the risk sharing agreement since 2006/2007 - especially since the FT cited Guido Rasi that price cuts were likely on the first batch of drugs authorized in these pay for performance schemes.