ABPI response to NICE review of how medicines and health technologies are evaluated

As the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) looks set to approve changes to the way it evaluates new medicines and health technologies, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry believes that – taken in their entirety - the changes will move the needle in the right direction for NHS patients.

Paul Catchpole, Value and Access Policy Director at the ABPI said:

“The changes set to be approved by the NICE Board will help support better access to life-changing medicines, today and in the future, while helping to deliver the UK Government’s Life Sciences Vision.  These long-awaited changes mean that NICE’s methods and processes will better reflect the incredible advances in medicines discovery. 

We share NICE’s ambition for fairness and equity of access to the latest medicines, including those for rare diseases. Rapid implementation will be vital so that patients can benefit as soon as possible.

We look forward to continued collaboration on further methods and process improvements which can make the UK even better for patients and a go to destination for life sciences companies to discover, develop and launch new medicines”.

Here is the ABPI’s assessment of the proposals and their likely impact on how patients will be able to get new medicines and treatments.  The changes will:

• Support faster access to medicines, now and in the future. However, flexibility and agility will be key to delivering on NICE’s ambition for fairness and equity for patients across all disease areas.  
• Help patients with very rare diseases to benefit from game-changing cell and gene therapies by providing better access via the Highly Specialised Treatment (HST) Programme. 
• Better recognise the impact and value that medicines bring to society, through the introduction of a new severity modifier. We are disappointed that NICE has not been able to take forward at this time evidence-based changes to the discount rate used in economic evaluations. 
• Use comprehensive evidence including real-world data to ensure all new technologies are valued appropriately.   
• Ensure NICE can evolve faster than has been possible previously through the introduction of modular updates. As research progresses in areas like disease severity and health inequalities, the methods used to value medicines can be updated accordingly.