The fifth Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi) Asia Policy Forum (APF) was held in Beijing, November 2017. The topic of the meeting was ‘Universal Health Care in the Asia Region: Overcoming the Barriers using HTA and Real World Data’. This presentation will focus on the use of real world data (RWD) as a mechanism of informing HTA in the Asia region – from the perspective of the not-for-profit HTA agencies that were represented at the APF.

The 2017 HTAi APF had senior representatives from government and HTA agencies from 11 countries in the Asia region. This included first-time attendees from Iran, Indonesia and the Philippines. A keynote presentation on the lessons learnt from Taiwan on the use of RWD was delivered, and there were guided breakout group discussions.

There are a number of registries and sources of RWD available to the HTA agencies across the Asia region. However it was noted that the databases are resource intensive to maintain, and there are noted time lags in the data collection and release. There are examples where the data from these sources have been used to evaluate local utilization of treatments and post-market surveillance, but it has not yet been used in pricing/reimbursement decisions.

Although RWD could be a good tool for healthcare decision-making in the Asia region, it is still unclear how to do so properly. Infrastructure and human capacity, as well as law, are key factors to the successful use of RWD. Standardized methodologies, increased transparency, quality control and capacity building are essential elements to better implementing RWD in HTA.