Fierce Pharma, February 19, 2015 | By Eric Palmer
Drugmakers are often at odds with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in England, saying it is stingy in what it will approve as payments for their best new treatments. But the industry and the gatekeeper have pulled together in defending against a study that says NICE is paying drugmakers too much for their best new treatments.
The study from the University of York says the measure NICE uses of paying £20,000 to £30,000 for quality-adjusted life years (QALY)–which weighs price against how much a life can be extended by a drug–should be capped at around £13,000, the BBC reports. “The increasing pressure to approve new drugs more quickly at prices that are too high will only increase the harm done to NHS patients overall,” claims co-author Karl Claxton. The study was particularly critical of the Cancer Drugs Fund, which allows even higher payments in some cases.