A cross-border alliance of health technology assessment (HTA) agencies has been announced by the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH). As well as CADTH, the alliance will include the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care (which oversees the Australian HTA agency, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, PBAC), and four UK-based agencies. UK participants of the alliance will be the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Health Improvement Scotland (which oversees the Scottish Medicines Consortium, the SMC), the All Wales Therapeutics and Toxicology Centre (AWTTC) and Health Technology Wales.
Through the alliance, the above partners will work together on shared priorities, and common challenges. Five priorities areas have been identified:
- COVID: Including managing medicines with no marketing authorisation, and economic modelling of COVID interventions
- Futureproofing: Exchanging ideas on how the HTA process can better anticipate technological and methodical challenges
- Collaboration with Regulators: Exploration of how to implement joint approaches with the regulatory agencies in the UK, Canada and Australia
- Work-Sharing: Running a pilot for joint clinical assessment between the agencies
- Digital and Artificial Intelligence (AI): Sharing information on the evaluation of digital health technologies and AI
The alliance will utilise working groups, with annual meetings to review activities and realign on priorities. It has been reported that the alliance may grow, for example the CEO of New Zealand’s HTA agency, Pharmac, has expressed interest in the collaboration.
Sources:
- CADTH https://www.cadth.ca/news/cadth-partners-international-health-technology-assessment-bodies-boost-collaboration-sharedv Accessed 9th September 2022
- MedNews https://mednews.com.au/industry-floored-by-hta-workshare/ Accessed 9th September 2022