By decision of 16 January, the ‘AIFA-Regions Technical Coordination Table’ was set up at the Italian Medicines Agency, coordinated by the Agency's technical-scientific director, Pierluigi Russo. ‘The objective,' the director explained, ’is to foster a continuous and structured comparison on access to medicines and their reimbursability, without prejudice to the Agency's willingness to provide its technical-scientific support in order to implement both the control of prescriptive appropriateness and the definition of therapeutic paths aimed at the optimal use of medicines and the governance of expenditure.'

In detail, the decision establishing it provides that the Table shall pay particular attention to:

• management of the various information and data useful for governance activities;
• verification and sharing of national and regional pharmaceutical expenditure monitoring data;
• early sharing of available information on medicines soon to be authorised by the Agency;
• sharing of the activities/activities deriving from the AIFA Registries platform for monitoring high cost and/or innovative medicines;
• sharing of analyses and/or technical assessments on prescriptive appropriateness and reimbursability of medicines, developed at national and regional level by the Agency;
• possible  support for activities/activities in the field of pharmacovigilance and/or clinical trials.

In addition to the Agency's Technical and Scientific Director, the Table is composed of one representative from each Region and Autonomous Province. There are 15 members already indicated by the individual Regions, while for the other 6 the regional designation is currently being finalised.

The full text of the decision with the names of the members already designated is attached.