Industry anger at NICE PAD on MS drugs: price cut proposal is "disingenuous"

The pharmaceutical industry has reacted with dismay to the NationalInstitute for Clinical Excellence's Provisional Appraisal Determination which recommends that, based on their clinical and cost effectiveness, four medicines licensed in the UK for the treatment of multiple sclerosis should not be supplied for this use through the national Health Service in England and Wales (Marketletter August 13).

The treatments are beta interferon, which is marketed in the UK as Avonex by Biogen, Rebif by Serono and by Schering Health Care as Betaferon, plus Teva's Copaxone (glatiramer acetate).

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry said the provisional recommendation was "extremely disappointing and entirely inappropriate," and put cost savings above the needs of patients. The ABPI was also highly critical of the NICE's suggestion that the Department of Health, the National Assembly for Wales and the manufacturers should undertake price negotiations, saying it was "disingenuous" of the Institute to propose price cuts, "since it knows very well that the profit on medicines sold to the NHS is strictly regulated under the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme."