A Systematic Review of the Value Assessment Frameworks Used within Health Technology Assessment of Omics Technologies and Their Actual Adoption from HTA Agencies

Abstract

Background: Omics technologies, enabling the measurements of genes (genomics), mRNA (transcriptomics), proteins (proteomics) and metabolites (metabolomics), are valuable tools for personalized decision-making. We aimed to identify the existing value assessment frameworks used by health technology assessment (HTA) doers for the evaluation of omics technologies through a systematic review. Methods: PubMed, Scopus, Embase and Web of Science databases were searched to retrieve potential eligible articles published until 31 May 2020 in English. Additionally, through a desk research in HTA agencies’ repositories, we retrieved the published reports on the practical use of these frameworks. Results: Twenty-three articles were included in the systematic review. Twenty-two frameworks, which addressed genetic and/or genomic technologies, were described. Most of them derived from the ACCE framework and evaluated the domains of analytical validity, clinical validity and clinical utility. We retrieved forty-five reports, which mainly addressed the commercial transcriptomic prognostics and next generation sequencing, and evaluated clinical effectiveness, economic aspects, and description and technical characteristics. Conclusions: A value assessment framework for the HTA evaluation of omics technologies is not standardized and accepted, yet. Our work reports that the most evaluated domains are analytical validity, clinical validity and clinical utility and economic aspects.