OBJECTIVES

: The European Commission (EC) recognised the need for a legislative framework to facilitate production and uptake of Joint Health Technology Assessment (HTA) work as conducted within the European Network of HTA (EUnetHTA) Joint Action 3 (JA3). To prepare the European landscape on the future of joint HTA work, the experiences of three pharmaceutical Joint rapid Relative Effectiveness Assessments (JA) published until January 2018 are analysed to investigate their impact at a national level.

METHODS

: During the production of the first two pharmaceutical assessments, a focus group was held with the authoring agencies, to get understanding of the procedural feasibility and the impact of such assessments at a national level. To complement this with broader experiences on the procedures, surveys (n=13) were conducted among the assessment team after publication of each assessment. Furthermore, surveys (n=3) were conducted with the manufacturers of the technologies under assessment, focussing on their views of the production and procedures.

RESULTS

: For all three published assessments the timelines have largely been kept and publication was close to publication of the European Public Assessment Report (EPAR), which facilitated the level of implementation of these assessments at a national level. Authoring agencies of these assessments agreed that the scope should reflect a European perspective, the production process should be simplified, and stakeholder engagement should be increased. The manufacturers of these technologies under assessment were positive about the process and the published reports, but stressed the need for further methodological development and creation of submission requirements and information sharing policy.

CONCLUSIONS

: EUnetHTA JA3 has an established process to conduct pharmaceutical assessments. While the first three published assessments showed positive experiences from both the HTA and pharmaceutical industry perspective, the need for procedural developments was acknowledged to further strengthen European joint HTA work and their impact at a national level.