{"entity":{"id":"philippine-hta-council","kind":"institution","name":"Health Technology Assessment Council, Philippines","aka":["HTAC","Philippine HTA Council"],"tldr":"The expert committee that recommends which medicines, tests and services the Department of Health and PhilHealth should pay for in the Philippines. By law their investments and new benefit packages must rest on its positive recommendation, and no explicit cost-effectiveness threshold has been published.","summary":"The Universal Health Care Act (Republic Act 11223, Section 34) created the Health Technology Assessment Council within the Department of Health to recommend what the department and PhilHealth finance, oversee health technology assessment in both, and review their existing benefit packages, and provided for it to become an independent body attached to the Department of Science and Technology within five years of operating. The Act states that investments in any health technology and the development of any benefit package by the department and PhilHealth shall be based on positive recommendations of the assessment, and lists the criteria: magnitude, severity and equity; safety and effectiveness, including that each intervention must have undergone a phase IV trial with a systematic review and meta-analysis available; household financial impact; cost-effectiveness; and affordability and viability. Results are to be made public.\n\nA 2026 University of the Philippines discussion paper, with an author from the Health Technology Assessment Division of the Department of Science and Technology, states that the Philippines has no explicit cost-effectiveness threshold, estimates one at P84,317 to P209,410 per quality-adjusted life year (36 to 89 per cent of 2024 GDP per head), and lists the faecal immunochemical test for colorectal screening in adults aged 45 and over among technologies the council positively recommended.\n\nThe council's own website did not answer from OnCo's network, so its recommendations were not read directly; the coordinates are a Manila centroid.","asOf":"2026-11-04","links":[{"label":"Republic Act 11223, Section 34 (Lawphil)","url":"https://lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2019/ra_11223_2019.html"},{"label":"Gloria et al., Estimating the cost-effectiveness threshold for the Philippines, UP CIDS 2026 (PDF)","url":"https://cids.up.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Estimating-the-Cost-Effectiveness-Threshold-for-the-Philippines_A-Supply-Side-Approach.pdf"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["doh-philippines","philhealth","fda-philippines"],"pathways":[],"terms":["hta"],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":["paper-chye-act-now-breast-cea-bmjgh-2025"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"city":"Manila","country":"PH","lat":14.599,"lng":120.984,"institutionType":"government","programs":["Coverage recommendations to the Department of Health and PhilHealth","Review of existing benefit packages"]},"route":"/institutions/philippine-hta-council/","neighbours":{"institution":[{"id":"doh-philippines","kind":"institution","name":"Department of Health, Philippines","route":"/institutions/doh-philippines/"},{"id":"fda-philippines","kind":"institution","name":"Food and Drug Administration, Philippines","route":"/institutions/fda-philippines/"},{"id":"philhealth","kind":"institution","name":"Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth)","route":"/institutions/philhealth/"}],"term":[{"id":"hta","kind":"term","name":"Health technology assessment (HTA), reimbursement and QALYs","route":"/terms/hta/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-chye-act-now-breast-cea-bmjgh-2025","kind":"paper","name":"Modelling the health, financial protection and equity impacts of upscaling the ACT NOW early intervention breast cancer pilot program in the Philippines: an extended cost-effectiveness analysis","route":"/key-papers/paper-chye-act-now-breast-cea-bmjgh-2025/"}]}}