INAHTA Chair (2023-2024)
IQWiG, Germany

Challenges for HTA-Organizations are not becoming less. Digitalization, Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMP), Real World Evidence (RWE), early access to innovations, growing economic demands, political requirements or simply lack of resources seemed almost enough to struggle with. But the pandemic tops it all. In these times an independent platform like INHATA, which provides flexible support, reliable methodological background and lots of pathways for collaboration, exchange and networking, is indispensable. However, it is not enough for facing the oncoming challenges of public HTA-Organizations. INAHTA must be the voice of public agencies in international HTA and beyond.

The demands of public agencies need to be strongly advocated in the right place. We are on a very good way but it remains a lot to do. This motivates me. Concrete, I believe we should strengthen the position of INAHTA for example through collaboration with international partners, through discussing global health system challenges with international stakeholder, to address needs, opinion and benefits of public HTA-Organizations in great extent. INAHTA, the voice of the public HTA-Agencies, must be heard. If we look at COVID-19 activities for example. There are a lot ranging from “live maps of evidence” and great repositories of different kind up to networks for coordination of primary research and evidence synthesis like “Covid-End”. On the one side, it is necessary in my opinion to help INAHTA members to find its way through this overwhelming offer. On the other side, as now there is the tendency to combine the strongest activities in this field, INAHTA as a network will have the potential to position and integrate the requirements of public agencies into this development. I would be pleased to support INAHTA with my experience in this field.

The second important point I would like to mention here is improvement of a flexible support for INAHTA members. Capability- and capacity building are catchwords used almost everywhere. There are many activities in the field of HTA. However, they are divers and lack of standardization. We need a reliable program designed for the needs of public agencies, from the start around initiation of HTA in exchange with decision maker and stakeholder up to continuous training and support. The task is to develop a process, which can use the great expertise of INAHTA members for a continuous program for capability and capacity building. This should address new members as well as old ones. This is new territory with need of new tools and digital means, for example webinars, virtual discussion rooms, etc. . However, I believe INAHTA as a network and “family”, is predestined to initiate and maintain such a structure. Moreover, in the end, this will lead to trust and close collaboration between public HTA-Agencies worldwide.
I would like to engage myself in the further development of INAHTA with a lot of enthusiasm.