A recent article reported a high level of commonality across European Health Technology Assessment bodies’ (HTABs) positions in former parallel scientific advice procedure. Since 2017, the EUnetHTA joint action 3 (JA3) offers a new early dialogue process involving a higher number of European HTABs. The present analysis aims to describe if the JA3 process modified the level of agreement across HTABs.

A descriptive analysis of the written recommendations provided during every JA3 early dialogues coordinated by the French National Authority for Health (HAS) until November 2017 was conducted. The level of commonality for each HTAB position identified was assessed globally and by domain (population, comparator, outcomes, study design and health economics) and classified as follows: “full agreement” if all HTABs had the same position, “partial agreement” if more than half HTABs had the same position and “disagreement” in all other cases.

Four JA3 early dialogues were performed until November 2017: two in oncology, one in neurology and one in metabolic disorders. Between five and nine HTABs from eleven European countries participated. A total of forty-six positions were identified in these four early dialogues: ten on population, five on comparator, fifteen on outcomes, four on study design and twelve on health economics. Of the forty-six positions, full agreement was reached for twenty-eight positions, partial agreement for seventeen positions and only one disagreement was observed. The level of full agreements was highest for questions on comparators (five out of five) and population (nine out of ten) and lower for questions on health economics (six out of 12).

Although the JA3 process substantially increased the number of HTABs participating in the early dialogues, this descriptive analysis suggests that the level of agreement remains very high. This may be facilitated by the high level of dialogue and coordination between HTAB ensured by the EUnetHTA process.