With the preparation of the Joint Action 3 on HTA switching into high gear, confirmation of the immediate practical relevance of the HTA activities are coming in – both from the national and larger European level events of the recent days.
At the October 29 2015 meeting of the HTA Network, the national HTA Network members and representatives of the stakeholder groups (patient/consumer, provider, payer and industry) expressed strong support for the results of the European cooperation on HTA to-date and welcome continuous action focusing on making the outputs of the European cooperation on HTA effectively contribute to the national HTA production processes.
To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Haute Autorité de Santé,HAS (France) organised an international conference choosing HTA as the main theme of the event. Recognition and full support of the EUnetHTA activities were expressed by various national and international high-level speakers and attendees of the October 30 conference, including the Minister of Social Affairs and Health of France. The European Commission’s representatives confirmed that HTA will continue to play a prominent role in the Commission’s 2016 work programme. Moreover, the European Commission’s roadmap for the single market, released on October 28, includes health technology assessment as one of the tools helping “to upgrade the single market”: “To improve the functioning of the Single Market for health products, the Commission will introduce an initiative of health technology assessments, to increase coordination in order to avoid multiple assessments of a product in different Member States.”
The importance to strengthen coordination and coherence of HTA activities is on the agendas of the current and upcoming international conferences in Moscow and Milan. EUnetHTA’s approaches including tools and methodologies for cooperation are prominently featured on the programmes of both
