Commission consults public on strengthening EU cooperation on Health Technology Assessment

Today, the Commission launches a public consultation on the form future EU cooperation on Health Technology Assessment (HTA) might take. HTA is a multidisciplinary process to assess the added value of a given health technology – for example a medicine, medical device, diagnostic tool or surgical procedure, over and above existing ones. It is a key tool for EU countries to ensure cost-effective, accessible and sustainable health systems. Speaking today at the EC-EUnetHTA Forum in Brussels, Vytenis Andriukaitis, 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 on the Commission initiative will run until 13 January 2017, after which a consultation report will be drawn up. In parallel, the Commission has launched a number of studies to further analyse possible options for HTA and their impacts. The HTA Network and the Joint Action EUnetHTA will be closely associated to the development of the initiative.