A Model for Priority Setting in Health Technology Innovation Policy

Abstract

Health Technology Assessment focuses on equal appraisal of health technologies introduced into the market. This has made regulators and the governance of innovation reactive and dependent on the initiatives innovators take for technology development, thus making it supply driven. The policy makers’ role has become one of appraising technologies that are already developed rather than guiding the development agenda. This severely limits the possibility to ensure that health technologies sufficiently address major issues such as burden of disease, trade deficit and health inequalities. It places governments outside of the actor arena that co-shapes technologies in the early stages, restricting the involvement to facilitating scale up or not. It makes it hard to achieve health technology governance practices that maximally contribute to ensure technological developments that actually address public concerns. What is the potential of frameworks for changing this dynamics and how can evidence shape technology development agenda’s without falling into the traps of regulator lock-in or social engineering? The methodology presented in this study takes first but important steps towards an evidence based framework for priority setting to guide innovations, particularly in health and social sectors