NICE needs narrower focus, says ABPI
pharmafile | October 20, 2010 | News story | Sales and Marketing | ABPI, NICE, value
NICE’s remit should be changed to give it a greater focus on the value of innovation, according to UK pharma industry body the ABPI.
Director general Dr Richard Barker said reshaping NICE was an urgent priority if the NHS and UK economy are to benefit from a vigorous life sciences sector.
“A focus on the future value of innovation, rather than decisions made on narrow cost-effectiveness criteria, would mean that NICE could play an important pivotal role in an outcomes-driven NHS,” he told the Westminster Health Forum.
Dr Barker set out a three-point plan to transform NICE that would see:
• Its definition of value to broadened to capture all the key elements of healthcare innovation, and reflect uncertainties in early assessment of medicines in value ranges
• Attention refocused on clinical best practice and quality standards and how innovation can advance both
• The dismantling of NHS processes that ‘second-guess’ NICE conclusions
“NICE has pioneered rigorous cost-effectiveness calculations, but many medicines that improve clinical practice and patient outcomes have struggled to enter the NHS – despite UK prices that are lower than elsewhere in Europe,” Dr Barker said.
“An advanced economy such as ours needs to take a broader view of the value that medicines bring in improving patient outcomes.”
The ABPI said it was ready for a “broad, constructive dialogue” with the coalition government to improve access for NHS patients to new medicines.
“How they are reimbursed is one factor, but how they are built into NICE’s view of clinical best practice and quality standards, and then brought into wide use in the NHS, will clearly be of equal importance,” the ABPI said.
The ABPI has previously told Pharmafocus that it has been in discussions with health minister Lord Howe and health secretary Andrew Lansley in recent months to strike a ‘fair deal’ for pharma.
NICE – end of an era?
As Pharmafocus reported in August, NICE’s role will be downgraded to an ‘advisor’ to the newly created NHS Board and will focus on developing around 150 quality care standards over the next five years.
The changes for NICE were wrought with the coalition government’s radical White Paper, Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS that is set to radically overhaul the way medicines are paid for, introducing a value-based pricing system within the next four years.
The change to value-based pricing will not happen immediately – the current PPRS scheme will first be allowed to run its course to 2014.
After that drug prices will be set according to the value medicines provide, with access likely to be no longer limited by NICE-set cost-effectiveness thresholds.
Ben Adams
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