International health technology assessment collaboration expands

The addition of Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux (INESSS), Quebec and Pharmac, New Zealand in the collaboration will see more than 134 million people benefit from the group’s work.

The group, established in 2021, now includes:

• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)

• Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH)

• Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care

• Healthcare Improvement Scotland (Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) and Scottish Health Technologies Group (SHTG))

• Health Technology Wales (HTW)

• All Wales Therapeutics & Toxicology Centre (AWTTC)

• Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux (INESSS)

• Pharmac, New Zealand

Building beneficial partnerships with international health technology assessment bodies supports our ambition to continually learn from data and implementation by using shared opportunities and challenges to develop new approaches to HTA. We collaborate on a range of topics that will benefit people accessing healthcare around the world and allows us to remain at the forefront of HTA globally.

The collaboration has prioritised work in 3 areas for 2023/2024

1. Working sharing

For pharmaceuticals and other health technologies, partners will explore the feasibility of work sharing to support HTA decision making and improve their agency’s capacity.

Activities of the group will include:

• Identification of methodological and procedural areas where further HTA alignment is needed to support future work sharing

• Engagement with national and global stakeholders about the opportunities for work sharing

• Initial process development and pilot identification

• For non-pharmaceutical technologies, a process to share information about planned and in progress assessments

1. Horizon Scanning

Partners understand the importance for our HTA and healthcare systems to be able to identify and prepare for the opportunities and challenges of the future. The group will work together to support better system preparedness.

Activities of the group will include:

• For non-pharmaceutical technologies, developing procedures to support agencies to exchange intelligence about technologies that could address health system priorities.

• Taking into account existing, planned and future agency activity in horizon scanning, exploration of how we could work together as a group to use these resources efficiently.

This work will also pave the way for new joint projects on common priorities.

1. Science and methods development

Partners collaborate flexibly in science and methods including other HTA agencies outside of the group. Collaborative work enables our agencies to make best use of the skills and expertise contained within our agencies and where appropriate promote an aligned HTA position.

Partners work to support awareness across the group of the science and methods projects our agencies are undertaking and to embed collaboration into those projects. The group can also initiate joint projects arising from work sharing and forward scanning activities.

Activities:

• Regular exchange about the science and method projects our agencies are undertaking

• Ongoing joint project work:

  • Methodological guidance and a new joint scientific advice procedure on the use of surrogate outcomes when analysing cost-effectiveness

  • Use of whole disease modelling in HTA

• Cooperative work developing a digital evaluation framework

• NICE-CADTH scientific advice

Apart from these three priorities, partners will continue to engage with regulators, especially where those regulators are collaborating and work sharing themselves, for example through Orbis and the Access Consortium.

The collaboration partners will hold an information sharing webinar in Autumn 2023. If you are interested in attending to learn more about our work, please follow us on social media where we will advertise the event. Alternatively, sign up to NICE news international where we will advertise the event.