The Federal Government has adopted the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) to guide decisions on which medicines, treatments and other healthcare interventions should be covered and how healthcare resources are spent.
The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) said the system would guide decisions on healthcare coverage, reimbursement, pricing and resource allocation as Nigeria works towards achieving Universal Health Coverage.
The NHIA Director-General, Dr Kelechi Ohiri, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja while presenting “Progress of Health Technology Assessment Institutionalisation in Nigeria” at the inauguration of the HTA Steering Committee and official flag-off of HTA in Nigeria.
The initiative was officially flagged off by the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Pate.
Ohiri said HTA would enable the country to make more systematic decisions about what healthcare services to purchase, who should receive them, from whom they should be purchased, at what price and based on what evidence.
“Strategic purchasing requires deliberate decisions about what healthcare to purchase, for whom, from whom, at what price and on the basis of what evidence,” Ohiri stated.
According to him, HTA provides a systematic and multidisciplinary assessment of the clinical, economic and wider value of health technologies, particularly as health insurance coverage expands and healthcare technologies become more numerous and expensive.
“HTA provides the evidence-based methodology to ensure those resources are spent efficiently and equitably,” he said.
Ohiri said the framework would also guide decisions on benefit-package design, coverage, reimbursement, adoption, pricing and allocation of healthcare resources.
The NHIA established a Strategic Purchasing Department and a dedicated HTA Division in 2025.
It subsequently developed an HTA Framework, Reference Case, Process Guidelines, Deliberative Process, Committee Terms of Reference, Conflict of Interest Policy and Stakeholder Mapping and Analysis.
The NHIA also conducted pilot HTA assessments on 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.
The agency also conducted and published the Nigerian EQ-5D-5L valuation study to generate local evidence for calculating quality-adjusted life years.
The NHIA said locally generated evidence would reduce reliance on evidence and preferences from other countries when making healthcare decisions for Nigerians.
In October 2025, the Coordinating Minister approved the National HTA and the HTA Steering Committee.
The committee was inaugurated on Wednesday as part of efforts to establish HTA as a national system for assessing the clinical and economic value of healthcare interventions.
