e-Poster Presentation Clinical Oncology Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting 2021

An agile and systematic approach to Horizon Scanning for the Australian context (#298)

Jennifer A Soon 1 2 3 , Yat Hang To 4 , Marliese Alexander 2 5 , Peter Gibbs 4 , Grant A McArthur 1 2 6 , Benjamin Solomon 1 2 , Maarten IJzerman 3
  1. Department of Medical Oncology, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  2. Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  3. Cancer Health Services Research, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  4. Gibbs Laboratory, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Research, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
  5. Pharmacy Department, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  6. Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

BACKGROUND

Horizon scanning (HS) aims to systematically identify novel therapies and technologies of interest to inform policy and decision-makers. Traditionally HS is performed by a dedicated team of experts. Despite increasing international focus and resourcing, Australian HS initiatives have not been sustained and currently there is no national or state organisation that performs HS on a formal basis. Instead, regulatory and funding bodies rely on pipeline and ad-hoc reports from pharmaceutical companies and research groups to inform future planning.

As part of the Medical Research Future Fund PRIMCAT project (MRFF119701), we will use a modified HS methodology to produce similar outputs with modest resourcing and on a shorter timeframe. We will identify the top 5 therapies in melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and colorectal cancer (CRC) most likely to impact the Australian healthcare budget in the next 5 years. The results of this HS will inform predictive modelling to estimate future resourcing requirements.

 

METHOD

Signal identification from secondary (expert opinion, Clinicaltrials.gov) and tertiary (MAESTrO Database, Dutch National Healthcare Institute) sources will be filtered by tumour type, intervention, trial size, completion date, and sponsor. Using Delphi methodology, clinical experts will shortlist the therapies most likely to make an impact on the Australian healthcare system over two structured rounds. The third Delphi round involves scoring the shortlisted therapies (n=10) against prioritisation criteria. Prioritisation criteria will be developed in conjunction with Consumers. Criteria weighting via the Analytic Hierarchy Process will be determined by an expert panel of 27 national and international medical oncologists specialising in melanoma, CRC, and NSCLC. A weighted decision matrix will be applied to identify the top-scoring 5 therapies in each tumour stream most likely to impact Australian healthcare and budget in the next 5 years.

Results will be available for presentation at the COSA ASM in November 2021.