Cancer drugs boost medicine assessment requests

The Medicine Council of Denmark saw an increase in drug assessment applications in 2024, with 67 received, 58% concerning cancer drugs, up from 42 total applications in the previous year. Chairperson Birgitte Klindt Poulsen attributes this to a heightened focus on cancer treatment and more nuanced diagnostics enabling tailored therapies for subtypes of cancer. The independent council completed 77 recommendations, surpassing previous years, with 64% of them recommended for patient use. The council aims to maintain the quality of its evaluations while improving processing efficiency, having improved their processing time, reducing the average to 16.9 weeks in 2024 from 19.8 weeks in 2023. With a significant number of applications anticipated for 2025, Poulsen acknowledges the pressure on the council to meet processing deadlines.