Junior Researcher KEMTA

We are seeking a junior researcher/PhD student on the topic of (early) Health Technology Assessment.
Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is a multidisciplinary process that uses explicit methods to determine the value of a health technology at different points in its lifecycle. The purpose is to inform decision-making in order to promote an equitable, efficient, and high-quality health system. HTA is used to inform health care policy in many jurisdictions, including The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It is especially well established to inform reimbursement decisions after technologies have gained market approval. The PhD research will focus on opportunities and challenges in the use HTA to inform decisions that are earlier in the life cycle of technologies. In order to do this, we will collaborate with translational researchers and med tech companies.
We will also use the extensive experience we have gained over the past years in supporting reimbursement decisions using model based economic evaluation for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in England and Wales as part of an Evidence Review Group (ERG) and Evidence Assessment Group (EAG). This ongoing line of work provides the opportunity to test modelling methods for early HTA, for instance when evidence is immature. It also offers an excellent opportunity to engage with stakeholders in health policy decision making.
NICE provides guidance to the NHS in England on the clinical and cost effectiveness of selected new and established technologies. NICE carries out appraisals of health technologies at the request of the Department of Health. Guidance produced by NICE on health technologies is also applied selectively in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. For more information on the technology appraisal and diagnostic assessment programmes, see www.nice.org.uk . NICE works with external independent academic organisations, ERGs and EAGs. Since 2011, KEMTA is part of this. Currently, 5 persons at KEMTA are participating in the NICE project. Their work as part of the ERG consists of the assessment of the health economic part of company submissions (single technology appraisals (STA)), as well as the development of assessment reports of, mostly diagnostic, interventions (Diagnostic Assessment Reports (DAR)). Within the STA framework, their role is to critically assess and report about model-based cost-utility analyses that have been produced by a third party (the pharmaceutical company) within a strict 8 week time frame. The decision model may be programmed in Excel, R, Data Treeage or Winbugs. A representative of the ERG attends the NICE committee meetings in the UK. The DAR framework involves the development of a de novo health economic decision model for a pre-specified problem, as well as writing a report and presenting the work at NICE committee meetings in the UK. You will participate in the NICE project and perform STAs and DARs in collaboration with health economic colleagues in Maastricht and the colleagues in the UK who are responsible for the clinical part of the STAs and DARs. The work consists of developing and assessing model-based health economic evaluations, and attending NICE committee meetings. This work presents an opportunity to play a role in health policy making at a national level.