One year into JCA, what have we learned and what comes next? Sessions on the agenda at ISPOR Europe 2026

With the first Joint Clinical Assessment reports now published, ISPOR Europe 2026 offers an opportunity to examine what early experience reveals about evidence requirements, methodological challenges and the future of EU HTA. We highlight sessions exploring the lessons learned so far and what comes next.

ISPOR Europe 2026, the annual European meeting of ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research, will bring the global health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) community together in Vienna, Austria, from November 8–11, 2026, under the theme “Shaping the Future of Access Through Science and Policy.”

With more than 140 sessions and almost 3,000 poster presentations across the four-day meeting, there is plenty for delegates to navigate. In the run-up to Vienna, The Evidence Base is taking a closer look at some of the key questions emerging across the program and selecting sessions for attendees to add to their agendas.

In this first preview, we focus on Joint Clinical Assessments (JCAs) under the EU Health Technology Assessment Regulation (HTAR). The first assessments have been a major focus of our coverage this year, as attention has shifted from preparing for implementation to examining how the new framework is working in practice.

Across The Evidence Base, we've looked at what Europe’s first JCA reveals about a framework designed to serve multiple stakeholders, explored the first JCA from a rare disease perspective with François Houyez of EURORDIS and discussed early industry experience with Nicole Yurgin. More recently, we considered what this experience means for orphan medicines, including the challenge of moving from PICO requirements to comparative evidence.

These same questions feature prominently across the ISPOR Europe 2026 program, where sessions will examine the lessons emerging from the first JCAs and what they mean for future evidence generation, assessment and national decision-making.

For readers unable to attend ISPOR Europe 2026, or looking to extend their learning beyond Vienna, The Evidence Base will host a webinar on January 27, 2027. Miguel Hernán, Huseyin Naci and Radek Wasiak will explore what the first JCAs reveal about comparative effectiveness assessment and the implications for future evidence generation.

REGISTER HERE

What will the JCA debate focus on in Vienna?

A year ago, much of the discussion around the EU HTAR focused on implementation: how JCAs would work in practice, how developers would navigate multiple PICOs and evidence requirements, and whether greater European coordination would ultimately simplify or add complexity to HTA.

One year on, the first JCA reports are now publicly available, providing an opportunity to move beyond expectations and examine what the early assessments reveal in practice. Questions around comparative evidence, PICO requirements, methodological uncertainty and the relationship between European assessment and national decision-making are no longer hypothetical. At the same time, attention is turning to what developers, assessors and policymakers can learn from this early experience as the scope of the Regulation expands.

It is therefore unsurprising that JCA features prominently across the program at ISPOR Europe 2026, with more than 25 sessions dedicated to the topic. Across the sessions, speakers will examine lessons from the first assessments, evidence-generation challenges, the role of real-world evidence (RWE), alignment between JCA and national HTA, and how developers can prepare earlier for future assessments.

To help delegates navigate the JCA discussion at ISPOR Europe 2026, we have selected sessions that examine the first year of implementation from different perspectives, from comparative evidence and methodological challenges to national decision-making, and together ask: one year into JCA, what have we learned and what comes next?

Selected sessions

One JCA, Many Decisions: Building an Evidence Strategy for Portability Across Europe

Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 12:15pm – 1:15pm
Moderator: Martin Parkinson (Thermo Fisher Scientific)
Speakers: Carla Dias Barbosa (Thermo Fisher Scientific), Victoria Paly (Takeda Oncology) and Caoimhe Rice (Thermo Fisher Scientific)

AI in HEOR: Advancing Evidence Generation for Joint Clinical Assessment

Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 12:15pm – 1:15pm
Moderator: Dalia Dawoud (Cytel)
Speakers: Manuel Cossio (Cytel Inc.; Universitat de Barcelona), William Rawlinson (Estima Scientific) and James Ryan (AstraZeneca)

Spotlight on Joint Clinical Assessments: Learnings to Date, Looking Ahead at Rare Indications, and AI Applications to Enhance Evidence Generation

Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 12:45pm – 1:15pm
Speaker: Jackie Vanderpuye-Orgle (Parexel)

First Wave, First Lessons: Multi-Stakeholder Insights from the Initial Joint Clinical Assessments Under the European Regulation on Health Technology Assessment

Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 1:45pm – 2:45pm
Moderator: Suzette Matthijsse (Lumanity)
Speakers: Anne Willemsen (Zorginstituut Nederland), James Ryan (AstraZeneca) and Niklas Hedberg (TLV)

Reading Between the Endpoints: Translating Trials from Regulatory Estimands to HTA/JCA Decision Making

Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 1:45pm – 2:45pm
Moderator: Miranda Cooper (AstraZeneca)
Speakers: Uwe Siebert (UMIT TIROL – University for Health Sciences and Technology; Harvard Chan School of Public Health), Antonia Morga (Astellas Pharma Ltd) and Dominik Karres (European Medicines Agency)

Preparing Orphan Medicinal Products for JCA: Strengthening the Evidence Package

Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 3:15pm – 3:45pm
Moderator: Suzette Matthijsse (Lumanity)
Speakers: Miranda Cooper (AstraZeneca) and Triona Zelesnik (Lumanity)

One Assessment, Many Decisions: The Future of Country-Level HTA After JCA

Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 3:15pm – 4:15pm
Moderator: Ruairi O'Donnell (Cencora)
Speakers: Anne Willemsen (Zorginstituut Nederland), Neil Grubert (Neil Grubert Consulting), Anna Shopova (Amgen) and Antonella M Cardone (Cancer Patients Europe)

Whole Health at Risk: Does EU Joint Clinical Assessment Conflict with Europe’s Antimicrobial Resistance Ambitions?

Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 4:45pm – 5:45pm
Moderator: Matthias Hofer (Office of Health Economics)
Speakers: Anja E Schiel (Norwegian Medicines Agency), Libby Hamson (GSK) and Patrick K Hopkinson (Independent Consultant)

EU HTA System Readiness for Orphan Medicinal Products Ahead of 13 January 2028

Date and time: Monday November 9, 2026, 4:45pm – 5:45pm
Moderator: Alexander Natz (EUCOPE)
Speakers: Pierrick Rollet (Alexion), Niklas Hedberg (TLV), Matteo Scarabelli (Servier) and Antonella M Cardone (Cancer Patients Europe)

Generating Decision-Ready Evidence for HTA and JCA

Date and time: Tuesday November 10, 2026, 10:30am – 11:30am
Moderator: Fatima Salih (NICE)
Featured research: Four studies demonstrating approaches to generating decision-ready evidence for HTA and JCA, including living NMA incorporating RWE, surrogate endpoint validation, matching-adjusted indirect comparisons and frameworks for identifying treatment effect modifiers and prognostic variables in indirect treatment comparisons.

Delay or Prepare? Navigating EU HTA in the Era of MFN-Driven Launch Uncertainty

Date and time: Tuesday November 10, 2026, 1:45pm – 2:45pm
Moderator: Eric C Faulkner (Passage Health Associates)
Speakers: Joerg Ruof, Jon D Campbell (National Pharmaceutical Council) and Gregory Daniel (Eli Lilly)

Parallel Joint Scientific Consultations under the EU HTA Regulation: What Have We Learned from the First Procedures?

Date and time: Tuesday November 10, 2026, 1:45pm – 2:45pm
Moderator: Michael Berntgen (European Medicines Agency)
Speakers: Karina Hansen (Novartis), Stephanie Said and Dimitrios Athanasiou (World Duchenne Organization)

Preparing CEE Countries for JCA: Aligning European HTA Standards with National Access Decisions

Date and time: Wednesday November 11, 2026, 8:00am – 9:00am
Moderator: Magda Chatzikou (Pharmecons Easy Access)
Speakers: Tarang Sharma (WHO), Jacek Walczak and Boryana Ivanova

Navigating PICOs in the Era of JCA

Date and time: Wednesday November 11, 2026, 8:45am – 9:45am
Moderator: Steffen Wahler (St. Bernward GmgH)

From National HTA to Joint Clinical Assessment: Exploring Similarities and Differences in Comparator and Outcome Selection Across Six European Health Technology Assessment Agencies

Date and time: Wednesday November 11, 2026, 10:00am – 11:00am
Moderator: Anne Willemsen (Zorginstituut Nederland)
Speakers: Roisin Adams (NCPE and Chair of the EU Member State HTA Coordination group), Keltoum Merroune (Haute Autorité de Santé) and Stephanie Said

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.