The National Committee for Health Technology Incorporation of the Brazilian Public Health System (Conitec), which was created in 2011 by federal law, defines the criteria for incorporating and excluding health technologies in the Brazilian health system. For technology evaluation proposals a recommendation report is carried out, which finds the best scientific evidence about the efficacy, accuracy, effectiveness, and safety of the technology being analyzed. The report also provides a comparative economic evaluation of the technologies already in the health system to promote and protect public health, achieve the best allocation of resources, and reduce regional inequalities.

This exploratory, descriptive, and retrospective study aimed to identify the criteria considered for the exclusion of medicines within the Brazilian health system from 2012 to November 2022. Data were extracted from Conitec’s website into a specific extraction form and analyzed using descriptive statistics.

During the evaluation period, 763 technology recommendations by Conitec were identified, of which 75 (10%) related to the exclusion of medicines. Several criteria were identified among the exclusion recommendations, including protocol updates, expiry or lack of registration in the National Health Surveillance Agency, and drugs whose clinical indication was not included in the list of drugs registered for treatments in the health system.

Although there is no standardization of criteria in Conitec for recommendations on the exclusion of health technologies, this study contributes to a better understanding of these technologies. Disinvestment of technologies positively impacted the population because it resulted in better allocation of resources in the health system, and some of the excluded technologies presented a greater risk of interactions and undesirable adverse reactions.