Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the methodology used by NICE to appraise combination therapies in the ongoing NICE Methods Review.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an independent body and is responsible for the methods it uses in developing its guidance. While NICE is currently undertaking a review of its methods for health technology evaluation, the review is not considering combination treatments as a specific topic.

Commercial and policy-related challenges for combination treatments are being explored in other projects in line with the commitments in the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access. As stated in the Scheme, the Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement will support the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s efforts to find solutions to these challenges.