OBJECTIVES : In 2012, Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) was mandated to assess the efficiency of health products having a potential significant impact on the French Health Insurance expeditures. In its guidelines, the use of real world data from SNDS (Système National des Données de Santé) is encouraged, including the Système National d’Information Inter-Régimes d’Assurance Maladie (SNIIRAM), the Échantillon Général des Bénéficiaires (EGB: 1/97^th sample of SNIIRAM) and the Programme de Médicalisation des Systèmes d’Information (PMSI). Open data tools also provide aggregated data from those sources. In the context of the Health Data Hub (HDH) creation, we aim to present an exhaustive review of SNDS data utilization in French health economic evaluations.

METHODS : Efficiency opinions published on HAS website from 2017 to mid-2020 were reviewed. Several information were extracted including therapeutic area, type of database used, if aggregated or individual data were used and how these data populated the cost-results analysis.

RESULTS : In total, 97 opinions were published. Aggregated data was used for the majority of opinions. Even if individual data use were reported in less than than 40% of them, their utilization increased over years (i.e. from 14% to 38% for PMSI), PMSI (23%) and EGB (13%) being the main databases used. SNIIRAM data were only cited in 1 evaluation. These databases were mostly used to collect healthcare resource use to populate models, validate drug target population and its characteristics, and validate extrapolations on clinical trials data.

CONCLUSIONS : The use of individual data extracted from SNDS is a gold mine for French health economic evaluations, but still limited. Some methodological concerns could have been raised. Therefore, there is a need to further facilitate access to SNDS and upcoming additional databases available through the HDH by developing fast-track processes.