FT Pharma 2013: NICE chair David Haslam says “I want as many yeses as possible”

The chair of the UK’s regulatory body the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence shared his view of the drug approvals process at the Financial Times Global Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Conference in London yesterday.

Former GP Professor David Haslam took the helm of NICE in April. He told the conference that NICE is “changing dramatically”, and now carries out a lot of public health responsibilities, for example overseeing the recent regulations governing smoking in hospital grounds. He also added that he was surprised how much influence NICE has overseas, for example in China which is facing the same problems as the English NHS.

He said one of the biggest problems facing the National Health Service (NHS) is co-morbidity, as more people in the UK have two or more conditions than just have one condition. “We need to stop thinking about single conditions”, he said.