Health technology assessment (HTA) has become a critical support to health policy decision-making. The HTA evaluation process requires transparency, formalized processes, clear timelines, and standardization according to international best practice. Tunisia is establishing an HTA-based decision-making system through the National Authority for Accreditation and Assessment in Healthcare (INEAS) to ensure impartiality and fairness in decision-making, which is important for an emerging democracy. INEAS opted for a participatory approach in developing the national health economic guidelines to better engage healthcare sector stakeholders in the HTA process. We aimed to present the main phases of the process used to develop the Tunisian health economic guidelines, the methodological choices for pharmacoeconomic evaluations, and the methodological choices for budget impact analyses.

The different phases of developing the guidelines were listed and reported.

The guidelines were developed under a technical cooperation program of the World Health Organization and involved collaboration between the Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux (INESSS in Quebec, Canada) and INEAS. The first version of the guidelines was drafted following a review of international HTA guidelines and best practice reference books, taking into account the Tunisian healthcare system context. This first draft was discussed in a workshop with the main health system stakeholders and then peer reviewed by international experts. Based on the feedback from experts, a second version was prepared and published on the INEAS website for public consultation. The Union of Innovative Pharmaceutical Research Companies (SEPHIRE), the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM), and healthcare professionals provided the majority of feedback. The comments provided by SEPHIRE were discussed during a second workshop. The guidelines were revised and updated based on the comments provided and the final version was published in November 2021.

INEAS adopted a participatory approach for developing its economic guidelines, which enhanced engagement of the major health system stakeholders in the HTA implementation process in Tunisia.