Conversations we’re expecting to hear at ISPOR Europe 2025: Are we ready for true harmonization across payers, regulators, and patients?
ISPOR Europe 2025, the leading conference for health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) organized by ISPOR — The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research, will take place in Glasgow (November 9–12, 2025) under the theme “Powering Value and Access Through Patient-Centered Collaboration.” The meeting comes at a time of significant change across the evidence and access landscape, as developments such as the EU HTA Regulation and the growing use of AI in evidence generation reshape how value is assessed and decisions are made amid ongoing geopolitical and economic pressures.
In this “Conversations we’re expecting to hear at ISPOR Europe 2025” series, The Evidence Base explores several key themes likely to feature prominently throughout the meeting – each reflecting an evolving dialogue among researchers, policymakers, payers, and patients.
As Europe moves toward greater coordination in value assessment and access, achieving true harmonization across payers, regulators, and patients remains a complex goal. The EU HTA Regulation marks progress, yet differences in pricing, reimbursement, and patient engagement persist. Adding to the challenge, geopolitical and economic pressures, from global pricing policies to regional industrial strategies, are increasingly influencing how evidence and value are negotiated across borders. At ISPOR Europe 2025, sessions will explore how collaboration across health systems, coordinated policy approaches, harmonized evidence generation and the use of AI-driven insights can support smarter, more sustainable access decisions in an increasingly interconnected marketplace.
Why these sessions matter: As economic pressures, industrial policies, and global pricing reforms reshape healthcare decision-making, the debate over harmonization has never been more important. These sessions will help attendees explore whether greater alignment across regulatory, payer, and patient priorities is achievable or if divergent national approaches will persist, providing valuable insight into how to balance national interests with collective progress in access, value, and sustainability.
Selected sessions
Managed entry agreements: Can CEE countries mutualize lessons learned?
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 10:15am – 11:15am
Moderator: Izabela Pieniazek (Certara, Poland)
Speakers: Rok Hren (Hren & Partner d.o.o., Slovenia), Anna Kowalczuk (Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Tariff System, Poland) and Guenka I Petrova (Medical University of Sofia, Faculty of Pharmacy, Bulgaria)
Opening the discussion on regional collaboration and harmonization, this session will explore whether managed entry agreements (MEAs) in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) could be mutualized to create more consistent, transparent, and efficient access frameworks. Currently negotiated individually, MEAs often result in fragmented outcomes and unequal patient access. Speakers representing payer, academic, and HTA agency perspectives will debate the potential for shared data, governance, and risk frameworks, alongside the legal and procedural hurdles that remain.
AI in CEE health system decision making: can payers, patients, and policy align for smarter access?
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 11:45am – 12:45pm
Moderator: Vladimir Guzvic (Health Insurance Fund of Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Speakers: Anna Kowalczuk (Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Tariff System, Poland), Maciej Grys (Certara, Poland) and Kevin Kallmes (Nested Knowledge, USA)
Continuing the CEE perspective, this session will spotlight health systems in the region are approaching AI integration amid unique resource and structural challenges. While single-payer models generate rich real-world data (RWD), reimbursement dossiers often face lengthy timelines due to limited capacity and fragmented processes. Panelists will discuss how AI could help address these barriers by improving data standardization, accelerating evidence synthesis, and enhancing transparency in HTA. The session will also consider ethical and methodological issues, such as algorithm validation and data privacy, while exploring opportunities for cross-border collaboration and efficiency across CEE systems.
How could patient-centric HTA evolve in the changing global pricing landscape?
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 1:45pm – 2:45pm
Moderator: Sean D Sullivan (University of Washington, USA)
Speakers: Olivia Wu (University of Glasgow, UK), Lynda Doward (RTI Health Solutions, UK) and Nicholas Adlard (Novartis Pharma, Switzerland)
This forward-looking panel will examine how HTA may evolve over the next decade – particularly for innovative medicines in early clinical trials today that will undergo HTA around 2035. Speakers will discuss how shifting macroeconomic pressures, global pricing reforms, and growing cross-border collaboration are reshaping the foundations of value assessment. The session will also explore methodological innovation, from evolving approaches to cost-effectiveness and comparative benefit to the integration of broader value elements such as equity and hope. Importantly, the panel will also consider how a stronger, more consistent patient voice can be embedded across future HTA processes.
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 3:15pm – 4:15pm
Moderator: Malwina Holownia-Voloskova (Certara, Poland)
Speakers: Oleksandra Oleshchuk (Horbachevsky Ternopil National Medical University, Ukraine), Kelly Lenahan (ISPOR, USA) and Jure Peklar (Slovenian Quality Care Agency, Slovenia)
Building on the discussion around regional collaboration in CEE, this session focuses on the foundations needed for lasting HTA system development. It will explore whether a regional roadmap could guide CEE countries from fragmented, donor-driven initiatives toward sustainable, institutionalized HTA infrastructures. Speakers will present perspectives from different capacity-building experiences (organizational, institutional, and early-stage) before a moderated debate that will aim to synthesize lessons into an actionable framework.
Date and time: Monday November 10, 2025, 3:15pm – 4:15pm
Moderator: Casper Paardekooper (Vintura, The Netherlands)
Speakers: Neil Grubert (Neil Grubert Consulting, UK), Anja E Schiel (Norwegian Medicines Agency, Norway) and Christoph Glaetzer (Janssen [J&J], USA)
Expanding the conversation beyond Europe’s internal HTA reforms, this symposium will explore how geopolitical and economic shifts are reshaping the global pricing and access environment. Speakers will assess how policy changes in the US, China, and other key markets, ranging from Medicare Drug Price Negotiation and Most Favored Nation (MFN) pricing to evolving value-based frameworks, are influencing Europe’s ability to sustain affordability and innovation. The discussion will then turn to Europe’s own policy direction, including the revision of the General Pharmaceutical Legislation and the EU HTA Regulation (EU HTAR), offering attendees a forward-looking view of how global dynamics are redefining pricing, evidence expectations, and access strategies across regions.
Navigating the global pricing policy landscape and leveraging AI for strategic insights
Date and time: Tuesday November 11, 2025, 10:15am – 11:15am
Moderator: David Ringger (Cencora, Switzerland)
Speakers: Neil Grubert (Neil Grubert Consulting, UK), Casper Paardekooper (Vintura, The Netherlands) and Leanna Baker Williams (Cencora, USA)
Uniting several of the previous sessions’ speakers, this workshop will bring together global pricing, market access, and policy experts to explore practical solutions for managing an increasingly complex international landscape. Attendees will gain hands-on experience in applying early scenario modeling and AI-driven tools to anticipate policy-driven changes, strengthen launch preparedness, and refine pricing strategies. Through guided case studies and simulation exercises, participants will learn how to balance global coherence with regional flexibility – translating insights into actionable strategies for sustainable market access.
MFN pricing: “More Fun to Navigate”—A European roadmap to success
Date and time: Tuesday November 11, 2025, 12:15pm – 12:45pm
Speaker: Tim Wright (Genesis Research Group, UK)
Amid ongoing uncertainty surrounding the implementation of MFN pricing in the US, this session will provide a practical roadmap for preparing pricing and access strategies in a rapidly changing global environment. The discussion will outline the key steps in establishing a US anchor price, including the role of value-based pricing, the importance of setting an early economically justifiable price, and the advantages and risks of different pricing options. It will then examine how these US pricing decisions can inform European strategies, helping manufacturers minimize price erosion and anticipate cross-market implications.
What lessons can the US learn from Europe’s experience with international reference pricing?
Date and time: Tuesday November 11, 2025, 12:15pm – 12:45pm
Moderator: Sean D Sullivan (University of Washington, USA)
Speakers: Panos Kanavos (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK), Virginia Lee Acha (Merck, UK), Julie Spiesser (Takeda) and Francois Houyez (European Organisation for Rare Diseases (Eurordis), France)
Another opportunity for attendees of ISPOR Europe 2025 to explore the global implications of the proposed MFN pricing policy, this session will examine how the US can learn from Europe’s extensive experience with international reference pricing (IRP). Drawing on decades of EU practice, the discussion will unpack both the benefits and unintended consequences of IRP, including delayed launches, differential access, and the widespread use of confidential pricing agreements. Speakers will consider how the MFN model might affect global pricing dynamics, trade policy, and market access, offering practical insights into how stakeholders can anticipate and mitigate downstream impacts across interconnected pharmaceutical markets.
Harmonizing and enabling cross-border real-world evidence studies in Europe
Date and time: Tuesday November 11, 2025, 3:15pm – 4:15pm
Moderator: Ashwin Kumar Rai (Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA)
Speakers: Sandrine Bourguignon (RWEality, France), Michael Hurst (Bristol Myers Squibb, UK) and Ignacio Medrano (Savana, Spain)
Turning the focus to ongoing efforts to harmonize Europe’s RWD ecosystem, this panel will explore practical solutions to one of the region’s most persistent challenges: generating consistent, high-quality real-world evidence (RWE) across diverse health systems. Drawing on lessons from multi-country initiatives such as Real4Reg and TEHDAS and their own hands-on experience, speakers will discuss navigating data heterogeneity, interoperability gaps, and privacy barriers. The discussion will highlight proven methodologies for harmonizing clinical variables, integrating multilingual unstructured data, and applying AI tools, such as natural language processing, federated networks, and synthetic data, to enhance data quality and compliance.
US-centric drug policies: how national interests are reshaping global innovation and access
Date and time: Wednesday November 12, 2025, 10:00am – 11:00am
Moderator: Meng Li (Tufts Medical Center – Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health, USA)
Speakers: Gunnar Esiason (Boomer Esiason Foundation, USA), Richard Xie (RA Capital Management, USA) and Mikkel Oestergaard (MSD Innovation & Development GmbH, Switzerland)
As national pricing and access policies grow increasingly interdependent, this closing session will explore how US-driven “America-First” approaches could reshape global incentives for pharmaceutical innovation and patient access. Panelists will discuss how cross-country pricing disparities, delayed access to new medicines outside the US, and recent EU initiatives such as the EU HTAR intersect in the broader debate over fairness and sustainability in global drug pricing. Drawing on patient, economic, and policy perspectives, the discussion will examine how creative differential pricing and collaborative financing models could balance innovation with equitable access worldwide.
Coverage by The Evidence Base
Our editorial team will be on site in Glasgow to cover some of these key sessions, share daily highlights and speak with presenters and partners. Follow The Evidence Base on LinkedIn for live updates throughout the meeting. For exclusive post-event analysis and session round-ups, register on our site to receive regular updates.
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