As US health care increasingly looks towards proven clinical effectiveness for reimbursement decisions, it has been hypothesized that health technology assessments (HTAs) published by NICE would influence drug prescribing and patient cost-sharing expenditures in the US according to the nature of the published guidance. HTAs are multidisciplinary policy analyses that examine the medical, economic, social, and ethical implications of the incremental value, diffusion and use of a medical technology in health care. The assessment function entails the process of collecting, evaluating, and systematically reviewing all available evidence for the technology under consideration. As a result, inherent elements of the technology appraisal process include differential analysis and implementation by different payers around the world and varied adoption of recommendations by all stakeholders including health care providers, patients and advocacy groups, and payers.

Learning Objectives:
Describe variations in the interpretation, adoption, and implementation of recommended guidelines from HTA by different payers around the world
Evaluate a set of sample cases to understand whether positive, negative or neutral UK (NICE) HTA recommendations have practical impacts on drug prescribing and utilization in the United States
Outline stakeholder influence in HTA decision making and identify strategic levers for biopharmaceutical companies.