A history of health technology assessment at the European level.

This study summarizes the experience with health technology assessment (HTA) at the European level. Geographically, Europe includes approximately fifty countries with a total of approximately 730 million people. Politically, twenty-seven of these countries (500 million people) have come together in the European Union. The executive branch of the European Union is named the European Commission, which supports several activities, including research, all over Europe and in many other parts of the world. The European Commission has promoted HTA by several policy positions and has funded a series of projects aimed at strengthening HTA in Europe. Around fifteen of the European countries now have formal national programs on HTA and some also have regional public programs. All countries that are members of the European Union and do not have a national approach to HTA have an interest in becoming more involved. The HTA projects sponsored by the European Commission have focused on networking and collaboration among established agencies and institutions for HTA, however, also on capacity building, support, and facilitation in creating mechanisms for HTA in European countries that still do not have any program in the field.