Bringing Us Together or Pushing Us Apart: Will JCA, HEMA, and Other Cross-Border Collaboration Initiatives Improve Patient Access?

All eyes are on coordinated health technology assessment (HTA) following implementation in January 2025 of the EU Regulation on health technology assessment (HTAR). This groundbreaking initiative aims to enhance collaboration and information sharing, optimize efficiency, and – ultimately – improve patient access to innovative health technologies within the EU. This is not the first attempt at cross-border collaboration in HTA; a number of initiatives have been established in various markets with similar aims, including coordinated clinical assessment (eg, EU joint clinical assessment [JCA], Joint Nordic HTA Bodies [JNHB] from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden (formerly the FINOSE collaboration); the international consortium among HTA agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom; Horizon Scanning (the BeNeLuxA initiative with Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, and Ireland), economic evaluation (eg, Health Economics Methods Advisory [HEMA] comprising the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review [ICER] in the United States, England’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE], and Canada’s Drug Agency [CDA-AMC]), and information sharing best practices (eg, Confidentiality of Clinical Evidence Informing HTA Decision-Making position statement from CADTH [Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health], ICER, and NICE). With an increased appetite for cross-border collaboration, and the EU HTAR now a reality, is the holy grail of global HTA collaboration an achievable goal? After briefly reviewing the remit of these, and other, cross-border initiatives, our panel will discuss how these collaborative efforts aim to accommodate the various needs, priorities, and circumstances of participating countries; and what the potential impact might be to health technology developers (HTDs). The panel will also offer insights into how HTDs might address the challenges they face and optimize the opportunities these cross-border collaborative initiatives might offer.

Sponsored by Corporate Partner, Cencora