From data to decisions: MAPA-MAPS 2025 spotlight

Bold Ideas, Bright Futures: Brilliance in Medical Affairs was the theme of this year’s joint Medical Affairs Professionals of Australasia (MAPA) and Medical Affairs Professional Society (MAPS) Australasia Medical Affairs Summit. The 2-day meeting was held on 24 and 25 September in Sydney, Australia, and welcomed over 300 attendees and 75 faculty members.

Oxford PharmaGenesis was delighted to sponsor the summit once again, with the team making the most of the opportunity to catch up with familiar faces as well as connect with new colleagues.

Driving change through evidence

Building on last year’s successful plenary session, Richard White (Chief Operating Officer, Oxford PharmaGenesis) returned to chair and co-present a panel session titled From data to decisions: the role of HEOR and RWE in accelerated access to medicines in Australia alongside Elizabeth De Somer (Chief Executive Officer, Medicines Australia) and Giles Stratton (Medical Launch Navigator, Pfizer). Together, the panel updated attendees on the multi-year journey of the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Review in Australia, with the current system seeing patients typically waiting after registration for more than 1 year for access to life-saving medicines. The panel described practical approaches for generating real-world evidence (RWE) pre-launch and explored how Medical Affairs can drive an integrated approach to HTA. With about 70 attendees, the session sparked a lot insightful conversations and highlighted the interest and importance of the much-coveted plan for reforming HTA in Australia and how health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) and RWE could play an increasingly vital role in expedited reimbursement decisions.

The case for publishing HEOR and RWE

A common question we hear is “why do we need to publish our HEOR and RWE studies?” Richard during his presentation explained that an effective HTA submission must demonstrate the differential value of a new product, highlighting that robust evidence is required to quantify:

• improvement in clinical outcomes
• patient outcomes benefits
• productivity gains
• lower healthcare costs.

Richard also described how HTA relies on systematic literature reviews (SLRs) as a gold standard in setting the scene of available evidence. SLRs are strategically designed to identify and evaluate all relevant published evidence for a therapeutic indication. With this in mind, publications captured by an SLR, including those focusing on HEOR and RWE, are reviewed by the HTA body and help to inform decision making.

If you’re interested in learning more about HEOR and RWE studies, integrated evidence generation planning, or accelerating impact through publication, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Oxford PharmaGenesis for a chat. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!