NICE to advise firms on how to speed up NHS adoption of their drugs

The UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is to set up a new Office of Market Access to advise companies producing new drugs on how to speed up their adoption by the NHS.

The decision, discussed at a NICE board meeting on 20 May, was outlined on 21 May at a Westminster Forum seminar on healthcare research by Carole Longson, NICE’s director of health technology evaluation. Research was the key to generating new drugs, she said, and moves to accelerate the adoption of new products were being encouraged by regulators in the form of early access schemes, where drugs may be approved on much less evidence than in the past.

In this new environment, she asked, “Is NICE sending the right signals to the research environment, and are we doing it in a way that can be picked up?” She answered her own question by admitting, “Well, I think we can do …