ISPOR Slovakia Chapter published in February 2022 the second edition of local pharmacoeconomic guidelines (“Guidelines for preparation of pharmacoeconomic analysis”; hereinafter referred to as Guidelines), which was created as an update of the Guidelines issued in December 2020.

Historically, the first edition of the Slovak pharmacoeconomic guidelines of professional societies was developed as a response to a broad demand for methodological recommendations. These guidelines take into account current international trends in pharmacoeconomics as well as guidelines of international professional societies. We are very pleased by the fact that the first edition of the guidelines met with a positive response from the professional community. At the same time this obliges us to continue in providing a methodologically high-quality and up-to-date source of information on recommendations in the field of health economics. Pharmacoeconomics is a dynamic and rapidly evolving scientific discipline. After just over a year, we bring the second edition of the Guidelines supplemented by new knowledge and sources of information, especially the updated Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards, CHEERS 2022.

At the end of 2021, all members of ISPOR Slovakia Chapter were invited to participate in the preparation of the second edition of the Guidelines. The working group, which consisted of all registered volunteers, has prepared a draft proposal to update the Guidelines. After incorporating relevant comments from members of ISPOR Chapter Slovakia and Slovak Society for Pharmacoeconomics as the next step, the final version of the second edition of the Guidelines was adopted and published at the ISPOR Chapter Slovakia website (www.ispor.sk).

As with the first edition, the current Guidelines are based primarily on published guidelines of international professional organizations, local legislative, methodology requirements, and includes other generally accepted and applied recommendations as published by renowned professionals. The presented edition of the Guidelines (unlike the first edition) does not contain an explanation and justification of Slovak legislative norms concerning the pharmacoeconomic, because in the period when these Guidelines were finalized, an interdepartmental comment procedure was held on Act Nr. 363/2011, which will bring significant changes to the cost-effectiveness assessment.

On behalf of the entire team of authors, we would like to express our conviction that the publication will continue to serve as a useful methodological tool for professionals preparing or assessing pharmaco-economic analyses in Slovakia. At the same time, we believe that the presented second edition of the Guidelines will help to further improve the level of the pharmaco-economics in Slovakia.