Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of high launch prices set by major pharmaceutical firms on NICE’s cost-effectiveness assessments; and what steps are being taken to prevent such pricing from restricting patient access to new treatments.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations on whether all new medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines in line with NICE’s recommendations, normally within three months of the publication of final guidance.

NICE’s process ensures that new licensed medicines will only be routinely funded by the NHS where the evidence demonstrates that their costs are justified by the benefits that they bring for NHS patients. As part of NICE’s appraisal process, companies are able to propose patient access schemes to improve their value proposition with the aim of securing a positive NICE recommendation. NICE is able to recommend the vast majority of the medicines that it appraises, with 91% of medicines recommended for the NHS use in the last year.