NICE’s approach to benefits and costs to be reviewed
pharmafile | March 7, 2008 | News story | Sales and Marketing |
The pharmaceutical industry has welcomed plans to review how NICE assesses the benefits and costs of drugs, with the hope that medicines will be seen as more cost-effective when their wider benefits are taken into account.
The government has pledged to launch a review of what evidence NICE accepts as relevant to its appraisals, which has been a contentious subject for pharmaceutical companies and patient groups for years.
The action has come in response to the Health Select Committee's inquiry into NICE, which has produced a wide range of recommended changes for the cost effectiveness body.
The MPs inquiry was sparked in part by the controversy surrounding Alzheimer's drugs, which NICE rejected for use in many patients on the NHS. Pharmaceutical manufacturers such as Eisai and Pfizer and patient group the Alzheimer's Society argued that NICE had not taken into full account the benefits to carers, but ultimately failed in their bid to overturn the ruling.
Now the government says it will convene discussions with key stakeholders including the NHS, patient representatives and the industry – but it warns that the question is complex and tied up with difficult social and moral judgements.
Nevertheless, the ABPI says it looks forward to taking part in the discussions.
"The price paid for a medicine or any other treatment has to be seen in the context of the overall value it brings – including benefits such as savings in hospital care and social services as well as quality of life improvements for patients," said David Fisher, commercial director at the ABPI.
"NICE's decisions have been made on far too narrow a basis, with the result that many innovative medicines have not been made available to all patients who could benefit from them. We shall eagerly participate in these discussions with the aim of putting that right."
The government said NICE taking into account wider costs and benefits has 'instinctive appeal', but added that closer examination reveals 'a number of complexities and potential perverse effects which warrant further exploration'.
For example, it says attaching greater weight to the impact of a disease on economic productivity would result in greater prioritising of treating adults of a working age, and thereby effectively making treatment of older people a lesser priority.
