On September 26, the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) organised a Roundtable in the European Parliament to discuss how to coordinate Health Technology Assessment between Member States and the 62 compromise amendments recently adopted by the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee (ENVI), responsible for the Commission’s proposal on HTA at Parliament.
All attendants agreed that an HTA framework would benefit in many ways the work already done by many stakeholders. In particular, this new regulation can increase the availability of innovative medicines and technologies for patients. However, patients’ representatives expressed concerns about, several ENVI amendments that if passed would underestimate the involvement of patients in the HTA process and bureaucratic burdens to allow that involvement. At the same time, Matteo Scarabelli from EURORDIS welcomed the clarification of the use of joint HTA reports, the rules for the update of a joint report and more flexibility for Member States to comply without undermining cooperation. Valentina Strammiello from the European Patient Forum (EPF) highlighted the need for a multi-stakeholder around the conflicts of interest that arise in HTA.
Although the European Commission and the European Parliament have worked very quickly to have the regulation approved by the European Elections (may 2019), opinions in the Council are heterogeneous towards this proposal and many discussions will be needed to find a final compromise between all Member States.
More information about the event can be found here.