Community views on factors affecting medicines resource allocation: Cross-sectional survey of 3080 adults in Australia

Objective. The aim of the present study was to determine Australian community views on factors that influence the distribution of health spending in relation to medicines. Methods. Across-sectionalweb-basedsurveywasperformedof3080adultsaged18years.Participantswereasked to rank, in order of importance, 12 criteria according to which medicines funding decisions may be made. Results. Ofallrespondents,1213(39.4%)considereddiseaseseveritytobethemostimportantprioritisationcriterion for funding a new medicine. This was followed by medicines treating a disease affecting children (13.2%) and medicines for cancer patients (9.1%). Medicines targeting a disease for which there is no alternative treatment available received highest priority from 8.6% of respondents. The remaining eight prioritisation criteria were each assigned a top ranking from 6.6% to 1.7% of respondents. Medicines targeting adisease for which there is noalternative treatment available were rankedleastimportantby7.7%ofrespondents,comparedwith2.4%,1.9%and1.0%formedicinestreatingseverediseases, diseases affecting children and cancer respectively. ‘End-of-life treatments’ and ‘rare disease therapies’ received the least number of highest priority rankings (2.0% and 1.7% respectively). Conclusions. These results provide useful information about public preferences for government spending on prescribed medicines. Understanding of public preferences on the funding of new medicines will help the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and government determine circumstances where greater emphasis on equity is required and help inform medicines funding policy that best meets the needs of the Australian population.