UK's NICE is too nice, health economist warns

The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the UK advisory body which recommends medical treatments, including drugs, in England and Wales under the National Health Service, is too lenient in its upper limit threshold for refusing patients access to drugs, according to a leading health economist.

Peter Smith, of York University's Center for Health Economics, told the House of Commons Health Select Committee that the NICE should cut by a third the valuation of each quality-adjusted life year from L30,000 ($59,887) to L20,000. Dr Smith argued that the present cut-off point encourages drugmakers to price their new products at higher levels than would otherwise be the case, according to a report in the Financial Times.

These views were echoed by Stirling Bryan, director of the health economics department at Birmingham University. Dr Bryan also noted that the impact of final appraisals issued by the NICE should be monitored on a routine basis to measure its effectiveness.