Evolution of Health Technology Assessment in Indonesia: Supply Landscape, Implementation, and Future Directions

In 2014, Indonesia's Ministry of Health established the Indonesian Health Technology Assessment Committee (InaHTAC) to prioritize evidence-based health care technology for inclusion in the national health insurance benefits package. This commentary provides an overview of the current state of the health care technology supply landscape in Indonesia, as well as the impact of HTA studies on priority-setting decisions. Indonesia's decision-making process for health care technology approval and patient access involves multiple stakeholders and follows several evaluation principles. The licensing, inclusion, and evaluation of health care technology is complex and time consuming, however, requiring input from stakeholders with different roles and interests. Although efforts have been made to establish an HTA ecosystem by, for example, engaging in capacity-building activities and issuing guidelines, challenges remain, including a lack of infrastructure, financial resources, and technical capacity and inadequate stakeholder involvement. Additionally, the current position of the HTA unit, which is connected to the Ministry of Health (MOH), and political pressures from the pharmaceutical industry can result in delayed or ignored HTA recommendations. Therefore, the establishment of an independent and robust HTA body that can inform policy makers about health technology development, licensing, dissemination, and use, along with strong regulations to ensure harmonization and coordination among stakeholders, is necessary. This requires a step-by-step approach to address inadequate overall HTA resources.