Is the definition of value in healthcare changing? Sessions on the agenda at ISPOR Europe 2026
What counts as value in healthcare is becoming a broader question. At ISPOR Europe 2026, sessions will examine patient priorities, prevention, system-level outcomes, sustainability and expanded value measures, asking whether established approaches to HTA and economic evaluation are keeping pace with what patients and health systems increasingly need.
Value sits at the heart of health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), but what should be included within that definition remains contested. Traditional measures of clinical benefit and cost effectiveness continue to underpin many decisions, yet greater attention is being paid to outcomes that extend beyond the individual technology or treatment.
That debate has featured prominently in recent coverage from The Evidence Base. In our recent discussion with Mark Sculpher (Centre for Health Economics, University of York), he reflected on the choices and trade-offs that shape health technology assessment (HTA). Louis Garrison (Professor Emeritus in The CHOICE Institute at the University of Washington), meanwhile, challenged the way value and price are often discussed in his Guest Column.
The same shift was highlighted by ISPOR’s Laura Pizzi and Mitch Higashi in our discussion of ISPOR’s 2026–2027 Top 10 HEOR Trends. Reflecting on growing interest in expanded value measures, they argued that future HEOR analyses will need to look beyond healthcare payers to a wider range of stakeholders, depending on the intervention and decision-making context: “HEOR analyses of tomorrow will be focused on healthcare payers and extended stakeholders.”
At ISPOR Europe 2026, the annual European meeting of ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research, taking place in Vienna, Austria, from November 8–11, those questions move firmly onto the conference agenda. The opening plenary, The Science of What Matters: Rethinking Value in Healthcare, sets the tone of this discussion by asking whether current approaches to value assessment are limiting our ability to capture what matters to patients, societies and health systems. Subsequent sessions extend the discussion to system-level value and the evidence HEOR will need as decision-making priorities broaden.
What will be put under scrutiny in the value debate?
A recurring theme across the program is whether existing value frameworks capture enough. Speakers will consider the extent to which patient preferences and broader patient impacts are genuinely reflected in assessment, rather than simply acknowledged, as well as how prevention, caregiver burden and longer-term societal benefits can be incorporated more consistently.
The debate also moves beyond individual interventions. Sessions examine how value is created across care pathways and health systems, whether expanded value measures can influence real-world adoption decisions, and how environmental impact and sustainability should feature alongside more established outcomes. Emerging approaches such as living HTA add another dimension, raising questions about whether value assessment should become more dynamic as evidence and technologies evolve.
A bird’s-eye view of the agenda shows the boundaries of value assessment being tested from several directions at once. By bringing patient priorities, wider system effects and new dimensions of benefit into the same discussion, the sessions selected below offer different perspectives on a fundamental question: is the definition of value in healthcare changing?
Selected sessions
The Science of What Matters: Rethinking Value in Healthcare
Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 8:30am – 10:00am
Moderator: Sandra Nestler-Parr (BioCryst Pharmaceuticals)
Speakers: Harald Schmidt (Maastricht University) and Sally Lewis (Kintsugi International)
Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 10:30am – 11:30am
Moderator: Belinda A Mohr (Medtronic)
Speakers: Marjan Hummel (Philips), Sally Lewis (Kintsugi International) and Abeer A Al Rabayah (King Hussein Cancer Center)
Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 1:45pm – 2:45pm
Moderator: Ramiro E Gilardino (Insights & Impact)
Speakers: Dan Ollendorf (Institute for Clinical and Economic Review), Chris Skedgel (Office of Health Economics) and Antonella Cardone (Cancer Patients Europe)
From HTA to Public Health: Rethinking Value in Obesity
Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 3:15pm – 4:15pm
Moderator: Erin Johansson (Eli Lilly)
Speakers: Olivia Wu (University of Glasgow), Michal Pochopien (Clever-Acces) and Lieven Annemans (Ghent University)
Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 3:15pm – 4:15pm
Moderator: Alistair McGuire
Speakers: Nancy J Devlin (University of Melbourne), Darius Lakdawalla (University of Southern California) and Mark Sculpher (University of York)
We Optimize Treatments—But How Do We Optimize the System?
Date and time: Tuesday November 10, 2026, 8:30am – 10:00am
Moderator: Rasmus Gjesing
Speakers: Ricardo Baptista Leite (HealthAI), Jakub Dvorácek (Pluxee) and Carole Longson (University of Manchester)
Expanded Value Measures Poster Tour
Date and time: Tuesday November 10, 2026, 11:30am – 12:15pm
Moderator: Zsombor J Zrubka
Featured posters: Six posters spanning payer-oriented value frameworks, environmental impact, social risk and mental health, Whole Health measurement and caregiver burden.
Are HTA and Health Funding Systems Failing to Incentivise Investment in Disease Prevention?
Date and time: Tuesday November 10, 2026, 1:45pm – 2:45pm
Moderator: Eleanor Thurtle (Costello Medical)
Speakers: Grace Hampson (Office of Health Economics), James Jarrett (Gilead Sciences) and Rosanna Tarricone (Bocconi University)
Date and time: Tuesday November 10, 2026, 3:15 – 4:15pm
Moderator: Lisette Nientker (OPEN Health)
Speakers: Ben A van Hout (OPEN Health), Shruti Pandey (OPEN Health), Malina Müller (WifOR Institute) and James Ryan (AstraZeneca)
Bridging the Gap Between Broader Value Frameworks and Research-Ready Decision-Making
Date and time: Tuesday November 10, 2026, 4:45 – 5:45pm
Moderator: Malina Müller (WifOR Institute)
Speakers: Petra Došenovic Bonca, Valentina Prevolnik Rupel and Wim Goettsch (Zorginstituut Nederland)
From Static to Dynamic Value: Can Living HTA and AI Reshape the Innovation Cycle?
Date and time: Wednesday November 11, 2026, 8:00am – 9:00am
Moderator: Esther Nzenza
Speakers: Olivia Wu (University of Glasgow), Nicholas Adlard (Novartis Pharma) and Sabine Vogler (Gesundheit Österreich GmbH)
Date and time: Wednesday November 11, 2026, 10:00am – 11:00am
Moderator: Zoltan Kalo (Center for Health Technology Assessment, Semmelweis University & Syreon Research Institute)
Speakers: Erik van Raaij (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Céline Fernandez (Sanofi) and Joukje de Vries
Fit for Purpose: What HEOR Evidence Must Become
Date and time: Wednesday November 11, 2026, 11:30am–1:00pm
Moderator: Malina Müller (WifOR Institute)
Speakers: Nick Guldemond (Leiden University Medical Center), Marie Gerstrøm Kristiansen (Amgros) and Nirosha Lederer (AstraZeneca)
Coverage of ISPOR Europe 2026 by The Evidence Base
Our editorial team will be attending some of these key sessions, where we’ll be sharing key insights in our daily round-ups published at the end of each day of the conference. Follow The Evidence Base on LinkedIn for live updates throughout the meeting. And for exclusive post-event analysis and session round-ups, register on our site to receive regular updates.
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