Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is a multidisciplinary field of policy analysis, studying the medical, economic, social and ethical implications of development, diffusion and use of health technology (INAHTA 2009). It is a tool for assessing and comparing various health technologies using the same unit of cost. HTA helps in informing the policymakers for making evidence-based policies. There are different reasons for conducting health technology assessments such as qualifying the product in terms of its applicability in common public, designing mechanism for healthcare reimbursement, finding a pathway to integrate health technology in the current health system or acquiring health technology for a hospital.

STATUS OF HTA IN INDIA
India has taken naïve steps in the direction of establishing an HTA eco-system with proactive involvement of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), eminent academic research institutes, pharma and medical device manufacturers associations as well as Govt. bodies. Moreover, private organisations have also come up with proactive initiatives giving thrust to overall HTA landscape in the country.

Institutionalized model of HTA in India is formally known as “HTAIn” which is governed by the Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare since 2008. Though it is being continually evolved as per the voice of stakeholders and political priorities, HTAIn has released its process manual in March 2018, which includes general details about steps to be followed for conducting HTA via HTAIn with Indian context (ICMR HTAIn 2018). Moreover, establishment of the National Health Innovation Portal has resulted in the beginning of HTA driven approach for the uptake of innovations. Introduction of Largest National Healthcare Protection Scheme-Ayushman Bharat has also given impetus to efforts towards achieving Universal Health Coverage and thereby increasing use of HTA methodologies to inform policy decision making. Out of several HTA outcome reports released by HTAIn in past, use of safety syringes and cardiac stents had become a tool for informing policy decisions.

Another major development could be seen in form of capacity building programmes across the country by various academia and industry professionals in the name of Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) and HTA. However, there seems to exist the know-do-gap reflecting in limited frequency of HTA reports as well as sub-optimal data analyses and early inferences without in-depth strategies for conduct and/or interpret HTA. This could also be partially attributed to paucity of several data and limited knowledge about pragmatic HTA methodologies.