UK pharma group slams NICE for failing to recognize nature of discovery and development

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) yesterday expressed major concern on behalf of its member companies that the drugs watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), decisions are failing to recognize the progressive and iterative nature of medical discovery. Several desperately needed medicines have been rejected by NICE recently, the lobby group noted.

All the medicines concerned are innovative advances in treatment. The NICE process assesses the value for money of a medicine for the health care system by comparing against other medicines or other means of care in use by the National Health Service (NHS). However, through increased use of cheaper, generic and “off-label” medicines as comparators, coupled with a lack of pragmatism in dealing with the available evidence, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get new medicines through the current NICE system.

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