Health technology assessment

On February 7, 2025, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published a manual for a new HealthTech program and launched a consultation. The HealthTech program will produce two types of guidance: Interventional Procedures guidance and HealthTech guidance (replacing former Medical Technologies guidance and Diagnostics guidance). The deadline for comments submission is March 6, 2025.

On January 24, 2025, the European Commission adopted an implementing regulation establishing the rules for joint scientific consultations on medical devices and in vitro diagnostic medical devices under the EU HTAR framework.

In January 2025, the HTA body of Tuscany Regional Healthcare published four new rapid HTA reports on medical devices used in surgical procedures, ophthalmology, men’s health, and orthopedics.

Starting January 12, 2025, Norway joined the EU Health Technology Assessment Regulation (HTAR) framework, a collaborative European initiative for method assessments. In 2024, a national working group assessed how to integrate HTAR into the "New Methods" framework. The Norwegian Medical Products Agency (NOMA) will be the key organization representing Norway and contributing to the development of Joint Clinical Assessments (JCAs) of medicines and medical devices.

On December 3, 2024, the Member State Coordination Group on HTA released the 2025 Annual Work Programme for the new joint EU-level HTA framework (Regulation on Health Technology Assessment, HTAR). The framework will be fully operational from January 12, 2025.

In December 2024, the Skåne University Hospital (HTA South) is working on health technology assessments in several areas, including men’s health and neurology.

In November 2024, the HTA body of the Tuscany Regional Healthcare published five rapid HTA reports (four new assessments and one reassessment) of medical devices in the cardiovascular, ophthalmology, ENT, and dermatology areas.

On August 7, 2024, the National Agency for Regional Health Services (AGENAS) announced a call for applications for Health Technology Assessment (HTA) for robotic surgery systems with intended use in the following surgical specialties: general surgery, gynecology and obstetrics, and urology, as part of the 2023-2025 National Health Technology Assessment Program for Medical Devices.

On July 15, 2024, the Austrian Institute for HTA (AIHTA) published three decision support documents that provide recommendations regarding the inclusion of new medical interventions in the catalog of individual medical services (MEL) for reimbursement, as well as two updates to previous decision support documents. The decisions relate to cardiovascular, peripheral vascular, interventional radiology, neuromodulation, and endocrine technology groups.

In March 2024, the Dutch Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) awarded subsidies under HTA Methodology Program for 2021-2024 for five projects intended for the development of a methodology for assessing technologies used in non-curative care.

In January-March 2023, the Austrian Institute for HTA published Rapid reviews of three health technologies: liposuction for the removal of subcutaneous (large) lipomas, biomarkers in Parkinson's disease, and the use of telepathology in intraoperative frozen section examination.

In February 2024, the Skåne University Hospital is working on several HTAs, including evaluations in the cardiovascular, e-health, endocrine, men’s health, neurology and neurosurgery, orthopedics fields.