MTRC shares the most relevant and impactful publications in the field of market access and HEOR for medical technologies in Europe through its Publications Digest. In a recent publication, Thokala et al. introduced the concept of “Living Health Technology Assessment (HTA)”, which is considered to be an approach to address the issue of outdated reports by establishing a process for regular updates. The authors described the practical implementation of the “living HTA” approach including the challenges and considerations involved and highlighted scenarios where “living HTA” could be especially advantageous.

Between late April and May 2023, three more health apps were introduced in the Directory of digital health applications (DiGAs) at the Federal Office for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) and thus became reimbursable. These apps can be prescribed by physicians and psychotherapists and will be reimbursed by health insurers. In total, 47 health apps are currently available in the DiGA Directory, and six health apps were delisted from the Directory.

On May 03, 2023, the HAS invited professional organizations and patient associations to submit their applications for inclusion of the topics in the HAS 2024 work program. This is related only to requests to develop new/update existing HAS recommendations and not to the creation of novel procedure codes.

MTRC shares the most relevant and impactful publications in the field of market access and HEOR for medical technologies in Europe through its Publications Digest. In a recent publication, Michaels et al. described the challenges surrounding the implementation of evidence-based clinical guidelines developed by national authorities and organizations. The authors examined the conflicts (objectives, values, and preferences) between stakeholders that develop and those that should implement clinical guidelines by analysing the situation at the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in England. Furthermore, the authors discussed the implications of these conflicts and provided recommendations for implementing guidelines effectively.

The European Health and Digital Executive Agency signed the Service Contract for the Provision of Joint Health Technology Assessment Work Supporting the Continuation of EU Cooperation on HTA with the EUnetHTA 21 Consortium. The 24-month contract is due to expire on 16 September 2023, and the EUnetHTA 21 Consortium will cease operating as of this date.

In April and May 2023, it was announced that the Galician Agency for Health Technology Assessment (AVALIA-T) initiated several HTAs, including the evaluations in the e-health, nephrology and urology, men’s health, IVD, obstetrics and gynecology, pulmonary and airways, surgical procedures, and some other fields.

On April 28, 2023, the NHS Cancer Programme awarded £12.1 million to six innovations that improve the early detection and diagnosis of cancer. Awarded medical devices, in-vitro diagnostics, and digital health solutions are used to diagnose bowel, skin, liver, breast, ovarian, and esophageal cancer. They have proven their efficacy and clinical effectiveness and will be funded over the next 18 months to support rollout and real-world testing.

In March 2023, Health Technology Wales published an Evidence Appraisal Report (EAR) and Guidance on photobiomodulation for the prevention and treatment of oral mucositis. Furthermore, seven Medtech-related Topic Exploration Reports (TER) were published, including single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation and AI-assisted ultrasound for deep vein thrombosis; however, Health Technology Wales will proceed with a full appraisal on one topic only - digital wound management tools.

The HTA body of the Tuscany Regional Healthcare issues three types of documents: full HTA reports, rapid HTA reports, and motivational forms. With regional decree 8803 of April 26, 2023, Tuscany Regional Healthcare has published assessments of two medical devices in the cardiovascular area.

In late April, NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative introduced the Health Technology Navigation Pathway Tool to help innovators adopt new technologies into the NHS. The Tool breaks the innovation journey down into 25 steps, themed around the five key phases of the product lifecycle, from creation to commissioning and adoption. For each step, the schematic flowchart outlines key organizations to engage with, regulatory insights, best practice approaches, policies, guidelines, to-do lists, and required outputs.

We are happy to announce a further expansion of our HEOR Department with Agni Baka, a health economist from the Netherlands. Agni holds a Master's Degree in Health Economics from the Erasmus University Rotterdam (2013), and she is a PhD Candidate (2023) from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Agni has six years of experience in the field of health economics and European health technology assessment (HTA). Agni combines expertise from both consultancy (Mapi Group in the Netherlands) and academia (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). Agni was involved in health economic research of non-pharmaceutical health interventions in the Netherlands and had a number of health economic publications in peer-reviewed journals (Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Behavioral Sleep Medicine, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity).

In April 2023, the Finnish Coordinating Center for Health Technology Assessment (FinCCHTA) released three health technology assessments in the field of eHealth, including the assessment of Thermidas thermal imaging system as well as two comparison reports of Digi-HTA with NorDEC and DiGAV frameworks.