"Victory for AD patients," ABPI says of drug appeal

The UK Court of Appeal has ruled that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, which advises the National Health Service on treatment coverage, must provide open access to the calculations it employs to determine a drug's cost-effectiveness. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry's director general, Richard Barker, said: "this judgement provides further momentum behind the drive to make NICE processes more transparent."

The case was brought by Japan's Eisai, the maker of Alzheimer's disease therapy Aricept (donepezil; co-marketed with the USA's Pfizer), which took the NICE's decision to deny access to the drug for patients with mild-AD to court after what the firm described as a "disgraceful" ruling (Marketletter August 20, 2007). Richard Ley, an ABPI spokesman, told the Marketletter as it was going to press that the verdict is "a victory for AD patients."