Study: Report on HTA processes highlights areas for improvement to accelerate patients’ access to innovative medicines
13.07.11
The study, jointly commissioned by EFPIA, EuropaBio, Medicines Australia and PhRMA, compares the HTA processes and outputs against best practice principles.
The report finds a variety of models with HTA being undertaken by independent agencies in some countries whilst in others they are conducted by committees which are part of the pricing and reimbursement decision-making process.
Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. The report found that HTA remains mostly applied to pharmaceuticals, and methods applied to other technologies remain less stringent often without a specific justification for why this is the case.
In particular the report shows that the link between assessments and access decisions could be improved. One of the crucial roles of HTA is to improve access to innovative treatments and medicines.
However, it found little evidence that current HTA processes make a difference in terms of speeding up access to medicines for patients or that HTA resulted in better rewards for medicines with higher therapeutic value.
Recommendations from HTA bodies are not always implemented by pricing and reimbursement authorities, and the overall link between HTA and pricing and reimbursement is still unclear in many cases.
The report & the full list of countries analysed is available for download here.
