OBJECTIVES: & METHODS: The review aimed to assess the appropriateness and performance of the newly established HTA agency in Thailand. The Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP), a research institute under Thailand's Ministry of Public Health, was formally established in January 2007, to be responsible for appraising a wide range of health interventions. During November 2008 to March 2009, HITAP vision and mission, as well as the program output were evaluated by domestic and international experts with logistic assistance from HITAP staff. Document reviews, in-depth interviews with key informants, and focus group discussion were employed as evaluation methods. RESULTS: & CONCLUSIONS: The study found that HITAP has been both effective and efficient in building up HTA capacity and delivering related researches to inform policy decisions in Thailand. A key success of HITAP influencing policy decisions was that HITAP developed four interlink strategies, namely 1) establishing national standards and a body of knowledge for HTA in the country; 2) building up researchers' competence and organizational capacity; 3) conducting comprehensive HTA studies using the standard methodological guidelines and tools developed within the first strategy; and 4) developing HTA systems and mechanisms which are effective, transparent, and acceptable to stakeholders. It could reasonably be argued that these interlink strategies were promising as a means of fillings the major gaps e.g. lack of research capacity and infrastructures for HTA, lack of knowledge /understanding of HTA and mistrust of methods among potential users, lack of timely and good quality of evidence. Because these similar problems were also identified in other resource-poor settings, experiences and lessons learnt from HITAP development are likely to be useful for other low and middle income countries interested in setting up HTA agencies.