6 November 2018 - Anyone wanting a bird’s-eye view of the political operating context for the European pharmaceutical industry need look no further than this autumn’s debates on health technology assessment—and particularly the European Parliament’s view of how to regulate it.

The Parliament reached its opinion on this complex legislative proposal in early October. Compared to the European Commission’s original plan for a streamlined European-level HTA, the Parliament wants to put the brakes on. For the Parliament, an EU-level assessment isn’t enough. They want Europe’s numerous national and regional HTA bodies to retain the right to run some of their own checks, even after the joint assessment in the Commission’s proposal.

As far as drug companies are concerned, that won’t work. The European industry backed the Commission’s proposal when it came out in the spring, because it believed an EU-level HTA could speed and simplify a process that was becoming increasingly complicated in Europe’s fragmented market. It would, industry hoped, eliminate the duplication and delay and discord arising from a multiplicity of local HTA bodies.

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