Your biweekly update on health economics, policy, and impact
This Bulletin looks at HTA reform in motion — Abu Dhabi's new cost-effectiveness framework, Spain's long-awaited HTA law, and the bigger question of whether HTA can keep up with innovation.
That’s your Bulletin summary, or read on for the full stories below.
Patricia Cubi-Molla, Senior Principal Economist
HTA goes global: New rules, systems and questions
Wherever you work in health economics, you have probably felt it: the ground beneath HTA is shifting. New therapies, new evidence demands and new political pressures are testing whether our assessment systems are still fit for purpose.
This month's OHE outputs capture that tension from three angles. Two come from our Around the World in HTAs blog series, which has already visited 20 countries (and counting). In Abu Dhabi, a young HTA system is being engineered from scratch, with an explicit cost-effectiveness threshold adjusted for severity, health gain and rarity – a nuanced design built in from day one. In Spain, Royal Decree 415/2026 finally gives HTA a solid legal foundation after the annulment of REvalMed. It is a significant step forward, but the system is still being built.
And in the latest episode of A Dose of Economics, Can HTA keep up with innovation?, Brendan Shaw, Martina Garau and Grace Hampson remind us that reform is not just about methods – the real test is implementation.
Abu Dhabi's new approach to HTA
Around the world in HTAs: Abu Dhabi – Advancing HTA and value-based healthcare in the UAE
Abu Dhabi's 2025 HTA guidelines introduced a two-step clinical and economic assessment process, along with a cost-effectiveness threshold that adapts based on disease severity, health gain, and rarity. As the UAE invests in local HTA capacity and works toward a "living HTA" model, it's positioning itself as a potential reference point for value-based healthcare across the region.
Around the World in HTAs: Spain – Closer than ever, but not quite yet
Spain has finally introduced its first national legal framework for HTA, Royal Decree 415/2026, following the collapse of its previous system, REvalMed. The new decree creates a formal HTA structure covering medicines, devices, and digital health technologies, with economic evaluation built in. But the decree is mostly an organisational statute — the real methodological detail is still to come.
Innovation is moving faster than HTA systems can handle - so what needs to change? In this episode, Grace Hampson speaks with Brendan Shaw and Martina Garau about what's really driving calls for HTA reform, what Australia has learned a year on from its Methods Review, and why working across borders matters more than ever.
Informal carers are vital to patient outcomes, yet capturing their quality of life in HTA remains a challenge. A must-attend masterclass for anyone working at the intersection of HTA, economic modelling and patient/carer-centred evidence.
OHE Annual Lecture 2026 Paying for prevention: the global health financing challenge
Health systems worldwide spend billions treating diseases that could have been prevented. Join Dr Eduardo Banzon, Director of the Health Practice at the Asian Development Bank, at 18:00 BST on 6th October 2026 at The King's Fund to discuss why we continue to underinvest in prevention and what's needed to change it.
