In May 2025, the Dutch Healthcare Institute (ZIN) published the Advice on considering staff deployment and sustainability criteria when assessing whether to reimburse medical procedures and technologies from basic health insurance. Since May 2025, ZIN has initiated a three-year trial to incorporate these criteria into the assessment process, with an interim evaluation after 1.5 years to be discussed with the Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sport.

MTRC shares the most relevant and impactful publications in the field of market access and HEOR for medical technologies in Europe through its EU HTA Publications Digest. In a recent publication, Arcà et al. addressed the persistent challenge of integrating patient perspectives into PICO scoping for Health Technology Assessment (HTA) under the EU HTA Regulation. The authors proposed a structured framework based on the Delphi panel methodology to enhance the validity and transparency of patient contributions, facilitating structured engagement and consensus among patients and caregivers across Europe. This approach is designed to better align stakeholder expectations with HTA outcomes, and a study is currently underway to assess its practical feasibility.

On June 5, 2025, the French National Authority for Health (HAS) published its favorable opinion on the coverage of AI-assisted digitalized urine cytology using VisioCyt Bladder, an in-vitro diagnostic medical device, under the renewed Repository of Innovative Procedures outside the Nomenclature of Biology and Anatomocytopathology (RIHN) 2.0.

MTRC shares the most relevant and impactful publications in the field of market access and HEOR for medical technologies in Europe through its Health Economic Publications Digest. In a recent publication, Thokala et al. provided an overview of how resource constraints can be incorporated into health economic evaluations. Drawing on literature and expert input, the authors identified three distinct categories of resource constraints: single-use resources, reusable resources, and constraints related to patient throughput. They also developed a comprehensive framework to guide a more accurate and realistic assessment of health technologies under real-world limitations. Their findings underscore the importance of systematic consideration of resource constraints by HTA agencies to enhance the relevance of economic evaluations.

In May 2025, Health Technology Wales (HTW) accomplished one full appraisal on advanced electrosurgical bipolar vessel sealing systems during hysterectomy. One Med Tech-related Topic Exploration Report was published on AMBLor for identifying low-risk non-ulcerated early-stage cutaneous melanomas.

Our goal at MTRC is to inform the decision-making of our clients and to support their market access activities. Below is a snapshot of our planned activities for the next two weeks. This can help our existing and prospective clients to understand the potential scope of our support better. From the week of June 16th, we plan to work on 16 projects. Review the complete list of planned activities in this post.

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, Basu et al. investigated whether health technology assessment (HTA) agencies systematically consider unique characteristics of medical devices in their guidelines and reports. Specifically, the study examined factors such as learning curve, incremental innovation, dynamic pricing, and organizational impact through a review of documents from 14 HTA agencies, five HTA networks, and the published literature. The authors identified inconsistent inclusion of device-specific attributes, with most agencies lacking comprehensive methodological guidance, underscoring the need for standardized frameworks in future HTA processes.

In May 2025, the HTA body of Tuscany Regional Healthcare published seven rapid HTA reports (six new assessments and one reassessment) of medical devices in the cardiovascular, e-health, intensive care and operating room, neuromodulation, ophthalmology, and orthopedics fields.

MTRC shares the most relevant and impactful publications in the field of market access and HEOR for medical technologies in Europe through its Sustainability Publications Digest. In a recent publication, Qin et al. assessed the economic and environmental impact of single-use instruments (SUIs) versus reusable instruments (RUIs) in cataract surgery across six centers in Europe and the United States. The analysis found that annual costs for SUIs were lower or similar to those of RUIs in four out of six centers, with the greatest cost-effectiveness observed in facilities where sterilization costs were highest. Over a five-year period, however, the carbon footprint of SUIs was substantially greater: 5,478.2 kg CO₂ eq without recycling and 4,639.9 kg CO₂ eq with recycling, compared to just 20.6 kg CO₂ eq for RUIs. These findings suggest that while SUIs may offer financial advantages in some hospital settings, they pose a significant environmental impact.

On May 23, 2025, the Norwegian Directorate of Health released an updated version of the Norwegian Laboratory Code (NLK) system and associated tariffs to be implemented no later than September 1, 2025. A total of 55 new codes were added in the biochemistry, microbiology, clinical pharmacology, and immunology fields.

MTRC shares the most relevant and impactful publications in the field of market access and HEOR for medical technologies in Europe through its Health Economic Publications Digest. In a recent publication, Reason et al. introduced how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), particularly large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, can support health economics and outcomes research (HEOR). The authors highlight that LLMs can streamline a range of HEOR activities, including literature summary, data extraction, report drafting, and statistical code generation. However, they also point out key limitations, such as the risk of hallucinated outputs, security vulnerabilities, reproducibility issues, and potential bias. Implementing LLMs in HEOR necessitates robust security measures to ensure compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the United States’ Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) when handling sensitive data.

On May 26, 2025, the Innovation Committee at the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) announced that 49 applications for innovation funding of healthcare research projects were accepted.