UK's NICE reviewing drug access, prices

The UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which advises on drugs and therapies to be made available under the  National Health Service excluding Scotland, was meeting - as this issue  of the Marketletter was going to press - to discuss the recent talks  between the government and the pharmaceutical industry on drug pricing  and access (Marketletters passim).

Commenting to the Marketletter ahead of the meeting's outcome, Jill  Mason, a partner and member of the health care team at UK law firm Mills  & Reeve, said: "these talks are a positive development flowing from  Professor Richards' report. Anything that brings clinically effective  drugs within the reach of patients must be a good development." National  Cancer Director Mike Richards, in a 2004 report that had been requested  by then Health Secretary John Reid, found unacceptable variations in the  uptake of cancer drugs approved by the NICE.

Ms Mason continued: "the question is how this rolls out in practice. It  will be interesting to see whether Primary Care Trusts are still asked  to fund drugs pending such funding agreements being put in place. Will  funding be set up first? Another factor concerns the range of  organizations now involved in these talks, including the Department of  Health, the Treasury, the pharmaceutical companies and [the] NICE, and  it raises the question as to which will take the lead and offer  accountability. The talks could also signal the possibility that [the]  NICE may now begin to increasingly focus on clinical effectiveness in  future. We hope this does not bring false hope to patients. However, it  does point to the bigger issues of pharmaceutical pricing generally -  another political 'hot potato'."