The Ministry of Heath from Uruguay receives award in INAHTA's meeting

This year during INAHTA congress a new activity was launched called “HTA impact story”. This activity was an opportunity for members to gather in breakout groups to share their experiences with what has worked well (or not so well) in achieving impact/influence of HTA products.

Uruguayan group presented a story related to the impact of HTA in judicial litigations for high cost drugs in Uruguay and won the first prize.

Summary

In many Latin American countries the decision to cover some high-cost non-curative drugs depends on efficacy, safety and economic evaluation. In those cases that the drug is not covered by the system, patients are using writs of protection against the Ministry of Health (MOH) requesting access to these new treatments. This initiative is based on the characteristics of national constitutions that establish health as a fundamental human right.

It is common that judges decide in favor of patients regardless of the result of evaluations performed by MoH. During 2014, a new strategy was developed by the MoH of Uruguay to transfer knowledge to judges. Two actions were taken: the continuation of multidisciplinary meetings to discuss the value of HTA in judicial decisions and the participation of an HTA developer during lawsuits.

Two meetings were done during 2014 with the participation of judges, lawyers, Ministry of Health representatives and HTA developers. During the meetings the process of HTA development was explained and a discussion on strategies for reconciling human rights and real value of the requested technologies was conducted.

Concomitantly, a medical HTA developer participated in judicial process providing detailed information of the profile of the drug or device under litigation, mainly in terms of efficacy and safety. As a consequence, during 2014 the number of litigations defined in favor of the MoH increased compared to previous years.