Your biweekly update on health economics, policy, and impact
This Bulletin looks at how health policy can shape investment, the implementation of the UK’s Renewed Women’s Health Strategy and the role of comparator choice in health technology assessment.
Does the public share policymakers’ enthusiasm for AI in health?
NICE has been at the forefront of considering how AI can be applied to healthcare and its evaluation. They have welcomed the responsible use of AI in evidence generation since releasing their position statement in 2024 and have published 17 evaluations of AI-based medical devices since 2023, contributing to the government’s aspiration for the NHS to be the most AI-enabled care system in the world.
Yet, as NICE themselves have acknowledged, some express concerns about the impact that AI has on trust, fairness and transparency, key pillars of their approach. NICE Listens: a deliberative public engagement programme will collect the public’s views on AI in this context as its next topic.
Policy enthusiasm for AI in HTA has moved quickly – as we explore in a recent episode of A Dose of Economics – while public engagement work is only now being conducted. If that engagement is to mean anything, its findings need to shape the pace and design of AI's role in healthcare, not simply validate a direction already set. If the public turns out to be less enthusiastic than policymakers, the more difficult question is which side is expected to give ground.
Turning ambition into action
Five unanswered questions from the UK’s Renewed Women’s Health Strategy
The Renewed Women’s Health Strategy sets out an ambitious agenda for improving women’s health in England. This insight considers five unanswered questions around inequality, value, workforce capacity, prevention funding and implementation, and what will be needed to turn the Strategy’s commitments into delivery.
Compared to what? How the choice of comparator affects new medicines
The comparator used in health technology assessment sets the benchmark against which a new medicine is assessed, influencing both patient access and incentives for future innovation. This insight examines five comparator scenarios and considers how comparator choice can affect price headroom, reimbursement decisions, launch strategies and R&D investment.
Financing prevention, rewriting drug pricing: the Change Initiative's new website goes live
The new Change Initiative website brings together OHE’s global health policy research and two flagship programmes: financing prevention and the US Policy Horizon Series. The programmes examine how health systems can address underinvestment in prevention and how US pharmaceutical pricing reforms could affect medicines access and innovation worldwide.
Informal carers are vital to patient outcomes, yet capturing their quality of life in HTA remains a challenge. Join the OHE masterclass at 13:00 BST on 17th September 2026 – it is for anyone working at the intersection of HTA, economic modelling, and patient/carer-centred evidence.
