WORKSHOP ON VACCINE ECONOMICS AND FOLLOW-UP ON HTA STUDIES

The International Decision Support Initiative (iDSI) lead by Health Intervention Technology Assessment Program (HITAP) has been working closely with the Health Technology Assessment Committee (HTAC) the nodal agency responsible for health technology assessment (HTA) under the Ministry of Health, Indonesia.

This visit started with a workshop at the Indonesian Technology Advisory Group on Immunization (ITAGI) office in Jakarta, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) Headquarters; the main agenda for this workshop was – ‘Economics of Vaccines in Indonesia’. Therefore, the first part of the report explains the key-takes from the two-day meeting i.e. 11th and 12th December.

Subsequently, this meeting was paired with a follow-up visit to support the four studies. HITAP has supported HTAC in three main areas, namely: building HTA infrastructure in the country, institutional strengthening and technical capacity building initiatives. Amongst the many activities undertaken to achieve these objectives, one of the main activities is to bring experienced researchers and academicians on-board and to provide hands-on training.

For the year 2017, the HTAC has decided to conduct research on four prioritized topics which are listed below. These topics were selected in a topic selection workshop endorsed and funded by the BPJS Kesehatan (Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Sosial), who are the administrators of the Universal Health Coverage Program in Indonesia.

The study topics are:
i) Using HTA to address the inefficient and unequal use of Nilotinib in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) Indonesia
ii) A systematic review of the effectiveness of insulin analogues compared to human insulin for treatment of type 2 diabetes
iii) Clinical effectiveness of EE of cetuximab on metastatic colorectal cancer.
iv) Economic Evaluation of bevacizumab.