OBJECTIVES: Economic evaluations of innovative health products (drugs and medical devices) are submitted by pharmaceutical companies to HAS (French National Authority for Health) for the purpose of price negotiation. Our aim is to present the principles of the Economic Evaluation and Public Health Committee (CEESP) doctrine used in the appraisals of economic analysis of health products.

METHODS: The elaboration of the doctrine was based on 139 reports of CEESP deliberations corresponding to the published HAS appraisals of economic evaluation of drugs and medical devices from January 2013 to December 2020. The main conclusions and the limitations of the economic evaluations were extracted from these data, classified, and synthesized by 3 assessors and approved by the CEESP.

RESULTS: This work facilitated the sequential definition of three main components of the CEESP doctrine and its specific aspects: 1) the methodological compliance with the current HAS guidelines of cost-effectiveness and budget impact analysis (i.e. objective of the economic evaluation, methodological choices and the level classification of the study limitations); 2) the CEESP’s assessments (i.e. relevant health outcomes and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, appreciation of uncertainty, conclusions on the cost-effectiveness and its budget impact; 3) the CEESP’s propositions in terms of healthcare decision-making, and collection of real world data.

CONCLUSIONS: The CEESP’s doctrine outlines the key principles to carry out the appraisals of economic evaluation of innovative health products. This HTA (Health Technology Assessment) tool helps to ensure consistency and transparency of the economic appraisals process and the equal treatment of manufacturers submissions regarding the current knowledge on the intervention and the disease being studied.