UK's NICE to lose the sting in its tail, as it will be denied pricing decisions

The UK drug watchdog body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), will no longer be able to deny patients the use of therapies on the National Health Service based on cost effectiveness, as it has done until now, and will only be permitted to adjudicate on efficacy and safety. Instead, groups of general practitioners within the 150 or so Primary Care Trusts will decide which drugs should be funded by the NHS in England and Wales.

The plans are set to come into effect in 2014 but are still subject to consultation, the Department of Health has confirmed, and are part of the Coalition government’s previously announced plan to overhaul drug funding in the UK under a value-based medicines pricing system.

In Britain, prices for drugs are governed by the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, which allows pharmaceutical companies to set prices when they launch products. However, this agreement expires in 2013, and the government plans to introduce a system of value-based pricing (VBP), already used by health authorities in Australia and Canada, in which fees are negotiated with companies on the basis of a scientific assessment of the drug's clinical value.