Early health technology assessment: current and future perspectives from a health technology assessment agency

Health technology assessment (HTA) can occur at different stages of a technology’s lifecycle. In the accompanying paper, Grutters and colleagues present a consensus definition of “early HTA” as a health technology assessment conducted to inform decisions about subsequent development, research, and/or investment by explicitly evaluating the potential value of a conceptual or actual health technology. Early HTA is particularly relevant to non-medicine technologies, which are often developed more iteratively than medicines. This article explores some of the ways in which early HTA is already being conducted on non-medicine technologies in the United Kingdom, as well as future perspectives and possible challenges in using early HTA.