COCIR has been involved in early discussions with European Commission since the setting-up of EUnetHTA in 2012 and was selected as one of the major industry voices to be involved in stakeholder fora. The national HTA agencies as well as European Commission have gradually expressed interest to enquire on possibilities to do more HTAs on medical devices. HTA has been a process largely used for pharmaceuticals so far.

COCIR has been intensifying efforts lately so that our sector gets the right attention as well as appropriate assessments. Our differences with the pharmaceuticals and other medical devices must be considered in order to conduct proper assessments capturing the full value of medical imaging and healthcare ICT technologies (see our latest Position Paper).

COCIR has recently requested to European Commission to provide the possibility for our industry to be directly and systematically engaged in those on-going discussions, and not only as an occasional observer, as we believe our sector, highly innovative should become an integral part of a sustainable European cooperation on HTA.

The role of HTA is to expedite the transfer of cost-effective technologies to benefit patients and improve the efficiency of healthcare delivery. We believe that the more interaction our industry has with the HTA Network, the better industry can directly contribute to the common goal, i.e. improving both the outcomes for patients and efficiency of healthcare.

As the 4th HTA Network meeting on Monday 23 March dedicated an agenda item to “HTA for medical devices” (see agenda here), COCIR and EUCOMED, were invited to express their views, expectations and limits of the EU cooperation on HTA. COCIR hopes this will be a 1st step towards closer cooperation with the HTA agencies across Europe. Click here to access our presentation.

Our expectations were summarized as follows:
1.    Need trust in Industry: Industry is part of the solution and not part of the problem. One Observer seat: number and status is not enough.
2.    Don’t mix CE Mark and HTA!
3.    Need effective coordination between Member States to increase efficiency and limit complexity and cost burden
4.    Need coordination between various initiatives (e.g. AdHopHTA)
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Besides, we continue to provide coordinated input through the EUnetHTA Industry Stakeholder Group on deliverables coming both from EUnetHTA and the HTA Network.

In addition, COCIR is involved in another EU funded project related to HTA called AdHopHTA.

Finally, hereafter the list of upcoming HTA-related events during which COCIR will be hopefully actively involved:
-    30 April (Vienna): AdHopHTA final Advisory Committee meeting
-    28-29 May (Copenhagen): EUnetHTA Plenary Assembly
-    29-30 October (Paris): 5th HTA Network meeting