Background: The Department of Science and Technology (DECIT) at the Ministry of Health (MoH), since 2003, has financed studies to support demands from the MoH technical areas regarding the decision making process about health technologies. OBJECTIVES To analyze DECIT performance in financed Health Technology Assessment (HTA) studies to improve the capacity building of HTA in Brazil. METHODS A retrospective descriptive study based on the analysis of documents and official records built in a single database in Excel containing the studies promoted by DECIT from 2003 to November 27, 2013. The variables pre-classified and collected from Brazilian Network for Health Technology Assessment’s database, SISREBRATS, were revised by two reviewers and conferred or supplemented with data from the Database of Health Research, Annual Reports Management by DECIT, and Final Reports and Cooperation Agreements by co-financier partners. RESULTS CONCLUSIONS These numbers show despite the HTA culture in Brazil having been in its initial stage, DECIT is increasing its capacity to respond to demands with a variety of studies types, specily in pharmacotherapy. However, evaluation demands do not always correspond to health needs of promotion and prevention.