…Inaugurates HTA panel
The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has begun a major drive to institutionalise Health Technology Assessment (HTA) as part of efforts to ensure that scarce healthcare resources are deployed efficiently, equitably and on the basis of evidence.

To this end, the The federal government has inaugurated a Steering Committee on National Health Technology Assessment to evaluate the social, economic, organizational, and ethical issues of health interventions and health technologies in the country. The main purpose of conducting an assessment is to inform policy decision-making.The aim of HTA in Nigeria is to provide recommendations informed deliberative processes to deploy HTA as a using transparent, evidence-based, priority-setting instrument for achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC)by providing guidance on decisions around policy prioritization, selection of health technologies, reimbursement, and input into procurement and pricing pharmaceuticals and other health technologies.
Speaking at the inauguration of the committee on Wednesday in Abuja, Director-General of NHIA, Dr Kelechi Ohiri said that the initiative marked a significant step in a journey that began more than two years ago and is designed to help the country make better decisions on healthcare coverage and purchasing.

According to him, HTA would provide an evidence-based methodology for determining which health services and technologies should be prioritised, who should receive them, where they should be purchased and what government and other purchasers should pay for them.Pilot studies, including work on cancer treatment, have already demonstrated the complexity of determining which interventions should receive public financing.

Minister of Health Prof Muhammad Ali Pate stressed that the exercise must go beyond reducing expenditure.

“It’s not just about reducing healthcare expenditure or restricting access to important life-saving tools,” the minister said. Rather, the objective is to ensure that scarce resources are directed towards interventions that deliver meaningful health benefits and value for money.

The minister also pointed to the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and the expansion of health insurance as areas where HTA evidence could influence benefit-package design, purchasing and coverage decisions.

The minister challenged committee members to ensure that HTA does not become another repository of reports and studies with little impact on government decisions.

“Our objective is to improve the decisions that we make.”

The minister said the ultimate test of the system would be whether evidence generated through HTA changes decisions on what Nigeria finances, purchases and provides to citizens.

The framework is also expected to support decisions on financial protection for Nigerians facing costly illnesses.

The minister cited efforts to establish a catastrophic health insurance fund covering conditions including kidney disease, cancers and spine surgery, noting that HTA evidence would increasingly be needed to guide how such resources are deployed.

The minister said the new system should also ensure that poorer and marginalised Nigerians are not excluded from healthcare because of the cost of treatment.

Ohiri said that the need for such a framework had become increasingly important because Nigeria’s health needs were extensive while available resources remained limited.

“Our health needs are plenty, and the resources are limited,” he said, stressing the need for better evidence to determine what should be purchased with available funds.

Ohiri said the institutionalisation of HTA would strengthen evidence-based decisions on healthcare coverage, reimbursement, pricing and resource allocation as Nigeria works towards Universal Health Coverage.

He explained that the HTA provides the evidence-based methodology to ensure those resources are spent efficiently and equitably adding that HTA was not being developed as a standalone technical programme but as part of the broader reforms to strengthen the NHIA’s strategic purchasing function.

The NHIA boss stated, “Strategic purchasing requires deliberate decisions about what healthcare to purchase, for whom, from whom, at what price and on the basis of what evidence.”

According to him,such evidence had become increasingly important as health insurance coverage expanded and the range and cost of health technologies increased.

“HTA provides a systematic and multidisciplinary approach to assessing the clinical, economic and wider value of health technologies,” he said.

Ohiri observed that the approach would strengthen decisions on benefit package design, coverage, reimbursement, adoption, pricing and resource allocation.

The NHIA began strengthening its HTA capacity as part of its strategic purchasing reforms, establishing a Strategic Purchasing Department and a dedicated HTA Division in 2025.

Since then, the Authority has developed an HTA Framework, Reference Case, Process Guidelines, Deliberative Process, Committee Terms of Reference, Conflict of Interest Policy and Stakeholder Mapping and Analysis.

The presentation said the documents provide the governance architecture and operational guidance required to move HTA from an emerging technical activity to a consistent institutional process.

The Authority has also invested in local capacity, with two PhD students and two master’s students receiving postgraduate HTA training at Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand.The NHIA also conducted and published the Nigerian EQ-5D-5L valuation study to generate locally relevant evidence for calculating quality-adjusted life years.The presentation stated, “This is an important component of institutionalisation because HTA should not rely solely on evidence and preferences generated in other settings when locally relevant evidence can be developed.”

To test its framework, the NHIA commissioned and completed three pilot HTA assessments covering kidney replacement therapy, colorectal cancer screening and sorafenib for advanced liver cancer.

The kidney replacement therapy assessment examined the cost-utility of dialysis and kidney transplantation, while the colorectal cancer study assessed alternative screening strategies. The sorafenib assessment involved a rapid evaluation of clinical and economic evidence for advanced liver cancer.

A major milestone came in October 2025 when the Coordinating Minister approved the National HTA, followed by approval of the HTA Steering Committee.Based on the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Act of 2022, HTA recommendations are to inform the design and refinement of the national health benefits package and BMPHS, ensuring that limited health budgets are optimized for the best population health outcomes.

Speaking at the event Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Muhammad Ali Pate emphasized that Nigeria must stop making healthcare investment decisions by simply copying countries with vastly different resources and health needs.

He noted that the country has been “flying blind” without a home-grown evidence-based system for deciding what treatments and interventions should receive public funding.

Pate stated that limited resources and an expanding disease burden made systematic and transparent decisions over healthcare spending unavoidable adding that the new framework would assess medicines, diagnostics, medical devices, procedures and other health interventions based on clinical effectiveness, safety, affordability, cost-effectiveness and equity.

He pointed out that Nigeria had often adopted approaches from countries with different resource bases and value systems without generating sufficient evidence for its own circumstances.

Pate observed that Nigeria faces a double burden of disease, with communicable diseases continuing to pose major challenges while non-communicable diseases such as cancer, kidney disease and other chronic conditions increase.

The minister said the problem would become more pressing as Nigeria’s population ages and demand for healthcare interventions expands.

Pate acknowledged that HTA would inevitably involve difficult public debates, particularly over expensive treatments that may extend life but place substantial demands on limited healthcare resources.

Pilot studies, including work on cancer treatment, have already demonstrated the complexity of determining which interventions should receive public financing.

The minister stressed that the exercise must go beyond reducing expenditure.

“It’s not also just about reducing healthcare expenditure or restricting access to important life-saving tools,” the minister said. Rather, the objective is to ensure that scarce resources are directed towards interventions that deliver meaningful health benefits and value for money.

The minister also pointed to the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) and the expansion of health insurance as areas where HTA evidence could influence benefit-package design, purchasing and coverage decisions.

The minister challenged committee members to ensure that HTA does not become another repository of reports and studies with little impact on government decisions.

“Our objective is to improve the decisions that we make.”

The minister said the ultimate test of the system would be whether evidence generated through HTA changes decisions on what Nigeria finances, purchases and provides to citizens.

The framework is also expected to support decisions on financial protection for Nigerians facing costly illnesses.

The minister cited efforts to establish a catastrophic health insurance fund covering conditions including kidney disease, cancers and spine surgery, noting that HTA evidence would increasingly be needed to guide how such resources are deployed.

The minister said the new system should also ensure that poorer and marginalised Nigerians are not excluded from healthcare because of the cost of treatment.