Parliament Proposes EU-Wide Health Technology Assessments

Draft legislation from the European Parliament calls for joint assessments of new health technologies including medical devices rather than the current system of individual assessments by EU member states.

Although the EU’s member states are each responsible for healthcare delivery, joint findings on HTA outcomes could help inform those decisions, according to a draft report from the parliaments’ Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

By cooperating in assessments through early “horizon scanning” to pinpoint technologies that will have major impacts, early dialog could ensure better study designs. In addition, assessments can help with divestment decisions when more suitable technologies are developed, the report said.

Several joint assessments were conducted in early pilot projects and a successful framework has been established that would allow for more joint HTAs moving forward, the committee said.

The proposal suggests that HTAs should be conducted for all products that receive marketing authorization. But it stresses that the joint work should not delay or interfere with the CE marking of medical devices.

Twenty EU member states, together with Norway, currently have HTAs in place for medical devices.

Read the committee’s draft report here: www.fdanews.com/05-30-18-ECHTA.pdf.