The European Commission on Friday opened a consultation to consider the views of a number of different stakeholders on the future of health technology assessments (HTAs) across the EU member states.

The commission is looking to track the experiences in the current system and the on-going cooperation mechanisms, as well as any future needs and opinions on the proposed approach in the Inception Impact Assessment.

Specifically, the EC is looking to hear more on a number of issues, including: The extent and impact of the current diversity of the national HTA system, the scope for joint work on the EU level, its use in national decision-making and feasibility, as well as studies that are being launched to support the impact assessment with data.

The EC says the initiative will not affect national pricing and reimbursement decision but to “communicate consistently from the outset that areas of price-setting and reimbursement should clearly remain national responsibility in line with Article 168 (7) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and are not covered by any future initiative on HTA.”

Speaking Friday at the EC-EUnetHTA Forum in Brussels, Vytenis Andriukaitis, EC Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said: "The commission has supported voluntary cooperation on HTA for more than 20 years, we have built a solid knowledge based on methodologies and information exchange. Now it is time to take the next step: to build a permanent, sustainable mechanism for EU cooperation on HTA so that all member states can benefit from the added value created by pooling resources, exchanging expertise and avoiding duplication in the assessment of the same product or intervention." 

The consultation will run until 13 January 2017, after which a consultation report will be finalized. In parallel, the commission has launched a number of studies to further analyze possible options for HTAs.

Consultation

Stakeholder Consultation Strategy: Strengthening of the EU cooperation on Health Technology Assessment (HTA)