Diagnostics, often accounting for a fraction of healthcare spending, influence the vast majority of clinical decisions, positioning them as the fundamental driver of value, efficiency, and personalized care. We sat down with Stavros Chisimellis, country manager of Roche Diagnostics Hungary, to discuss how unlocking the “Diagnostic Dividend”, the exponential return on investment from better information, can help Hungary navigate its current transformation and build a more resilient future.
How critical is it for Hungary to pivot its focus from the cost of a test to the value of the information it provides?
We must view laboratory diagnostics not as a cost center, but as a crucial investment in patient outcomes and systemic efficiency. Diagnostics are responsible for up to 4% of total healthcare expenditures, yet they inform approximately 70% of all clinical decision-making. The strategic priority for Hungary must be twofold: ensuring the highest quality of diagnostic tests, and facilitating the introduction of innovative diagnostic solutions that support the entire spectrum of the patient journey–from early screening and prognosis to personalized treatment selection and monitoring. To fully realize this value-based pivot, the single most important enabler is the simplification and shortening of the reimbursement process. This is key to ensuring innovative, beneficial products are rapidly and equitably available to all patients who stand to benefit.
In Hungary, as in much of Europe, innovative tests often face resistance due to immediate cost concerns. Can you pinpoint one or two specific Hungarian patient pathways where shifting the focus from the “cost of the test” to the comprehensive ‘value of the data’ would demonstrably yield immediate, measurable savings for the healthcare system while simultaneously improving patient survival and quality of life?
If I have to pick one area for Hungary right now, it would absolutely be the management of neurodegenerative diseases, especially Alzheimer’s Disease. The old diagnostic path for AD was costly, complex, and critically, it was often too late. But we’ve recently launched a new biomarker and this is truly a paradigm shift in how we approach diagnosis. It’s designed specifically to help clinicians confidently rule out AD-related amyloid pathology as the cause of cognitive decline. So, by delivering a high-information, low-cost test, we immediately generate systemic savings by avoiding unnecessary procedures and streamlining resource use across the system. But the value goes beyond the budget. It gives the patient and their family clear answers, allowing them to plan ahead, reducing that terrible uncertainty, and ultimately improving their quality of life.
If the value of diagnostics is not appropriately recognized and rewarded in the reimbursement structure, it inherently stifles innovation uptake. How can industry players, like Roche Diagnostics, collaborate with the payer and policymakers to develop measurable indicators that ensure high-value, innovative IVD technologies receive timely market access and are utilized optimally across the Hungarian healthcare system?
This is, frankly, the most important challenge we face today. Our perspective at Roche is that we need to stop thinking about this as a negotiation and start treating it as a structured partnership with the payer and policymakers. We must replace the transactional model with a Strategic Investment Model, for which we need to agree on shared, measurable metrics that are relevant to the Hungarian patient population. We are committed to engaging in structured, transparent dialogue with all relevant Hungarian stakeholders while our innovative solutions are still in early development. This allows us to agree on the necessary local Real-World Evidence (RWE) upfront, ensuring that when a high-value product is ready for patients, the market access process is rapid, predictable, and based entirely on proven value.
Hungary’s EESZT is a critical national digital backbone, but the EU regulatory landscape is tightening with directives like NIS-2 and the Cyber Resilience Act. For a company like Roche, whose devices are increasingly connected, how do you manage the dual mandate of ensuring seamless data flow and interoperability with EESZT, while simultaneously guaranteeing state-of-the-art cybersecurity?
This is absolutely the future of diagnostics, and it’s the most complex area we operate in. We see this dual challenge–interoperability and security–not as a hurdle, but as our core responsibility to the Hungarian system. For diagnostics to deliver value, the data must be seamless. Our focus is ensuring our connected laboratory and Point-of-Care solutions are designed with open architecture to integrate smoothly with national platforms like EESZT. The goal is simple: to make sure every high-quality test result is immediately usable by clinicians, wherever they are in the system. You mentioned NIS-2 and the Cyber Resilience Act – these aren’t just IT requirements; they are cornerstones of patient safety. Ultimately, our promise is to deliver not just accurate test results, but also a digitally secure and connected diagnostic environment that the Hungarian healthcare system can rely on.
Let’s link this back to the value conversation. If we want to talk about impact, closing the cervical cancer screening gap is the most urgent public health opportunity in Hungary right now.
For us, the solution breaks down into two immediate, non-negotiable pillars. We must modernize the lab work. This means moving immediately to HPV DNA Primary Screening. As opposed to old, less accurate and subjective methodsÐthis diagnostic technology is faster and far more accurate at identifying the highest-risk women. Then, we use the Roche CINtec¨ PLUS test as our smart triage tool. This two-step, state-of-the-art approach means we drastically cut down on false alarms and ensure that the right patient gets the right treatment, saving the system time and money. The elephant in the room is attendance. How do we get women to show up? The answer in mid-term could be self-sampling. This is a game-changer because it takes the screening process out of the clinic and into the patient’s home. Ultimately, by combining gold-standard science with this radically improved patient access, we deliver an end-to-end, scalable solution that doesn’t just treat the problemÐit actively pushes Hungary over the line toward eliminating cervical cancer entirely.
Heart failure diagnosis in Hungary is currently bottlenecked at the specialist level, leading to delayed triage and poor outcomes. How can Roche support Primary Care Physicians to deploy biomarkers, fundamentally shifting heart failure diagnosis to an efficient, rule-out model at the community level?
The future of diagnostics is decentralizedÐit’s moving closer to the patient, and the General Practitioner is the new gatekeeper. Decentralizing chronic disease management, especially for heart failure, frees up specialists and hospitals to focus on acute, high-need cases. First, we must arm the GP with the gold-standard diagnostic tool: NT-proBNP. This isn’t just a monitoring test; it’s a critical rule-out tool. When a patient presents with vague symptoms, a rapid, accurate NT-proBNP result at the primary care level allows the GP to immediately and confidently stratify risk. This stops the unnecessary, costly, and time-consuming cycle of specialist referrals and delayed diagnoses. But a test result on its own isn’t enough. The data must be trustworthy and actionable. That’s where Roche’s expertise in digital solutions and quality control comes in. We support GPs not just with the device, but with the necessary training, clear clinical pathways, and the digital ecosystem to ensure: reliability regarding the quality and connectivity, meaning that results flow instantly back into the EESZT for seamless specialist review.
The future of Hungarian healthcare rests on its ability to leverage data into decisive action. As Stavros Chisimellis has outlined, the true potential of diagnostics is not just in detecting disease, but in guiding care pathways to deliver measurable patient and economic value. Roche Diagnostics remains committed to being a strategic partner in Hungary’s drive toward a more resilient, digital, and value-driven health system, ensuring that cutting-edge diagnostic information is accessible, reliable, and central to every clinical decision made.
This article was first published in the Pharma Industry Review 2025 / 2. print issue.
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