This project is part of the international Decision Support Initiative (iDSI), an innovative global partnership between leading government institutions, universities, and think tanks in the field of healthcare priority-setting. iDSI uniquely provides intellectual insight with hands-on field expertise, and delivers peer-to-peer support to policymakers and international donors.

In this project, the HIU partners with NICE International partners to build local capacity in the Philippines in assessing the value for money of newly developed vaccines that are available in the Philippine’s market, specifically on vaccine evaluation. An overall plan of the vaccine evaluation is for NICE International and HITAP International Unit (HIU) to provide technical assistance to the local researchers in conducting health economic evaluations of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and pneumococcal conjugated vaccine (PCV). The two vaccines were selected because they are on policy debates in Philippines and HITAP had extensive expertise on the evaluations, completing works in Thailand and publishing several related journal articles.

The project was divided into three phases. The first is to offer local researchers concept and skills for conducting vaccine evaluations. Using existing models in Thailand, local researchers were to adapt to the model with local information in order to estimate costs and consequences of introducing the vaccines in Philippines. The second phase is for the HIU to provide technical assistance in verifying input information and analyzing evaluation results. The final phase includes stakeholder consultation meetings in Philippines and adjusting the evaluations according to suggestions and comments gathered from the consultation meetings. Lastly, the HIU is to aid the local team in completing both technical reports and journal publications.

Project’s Aims

The iDSI supports countries in achieving and sustaining Universal Health Coverage (UHC), through helping policy makers and donors make better healthcare spending decisions. As part of iDSI, this project aims to promote the use of health technology assessment (HTA) for policy decision-making toward universal healthcare coverage. NICE International partners with HITAP to build up local capacity in assessing the value for money of newly developed vaccines that are available in the Philippine’s market.

Project’s Output

Global public goods

Hands-on demonstration project: