The NHS is paying too high a price for new medicines and the Cancer Drugs Fund represents particularly poor value.

These are the key claims to come out of research from the University of York which claims that the threshold used by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence when gauging the cost-effectiveness of new drugs is too high. This means that their approval at this level “is doing more harm than good to NHS patients overall”.

The analysis notes that currently NICE uses a threshold of £30,000 per Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) but claims this should be £13,000 to provide most benefit across the NHS. The present level is leading to increased mortality in cancer, circulatory, respiratory or gastro-intestinal diseases and reduced quality of life in neurological diseases and mental health, the researchers argue.

The report also argues “the scale of the harm that has been done to other NHS patients” of devoting £280 million to the Cancer Drugs Fund in 2014/15 (a loss of 21,645 QALYs).

Co-author Karl Claxton said that “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”. He added that “the political pressure to support a multinational pharmaceutical sector cannot justify the real harm that has and will continue to be done to NHS patients”.

For more details, go to: http://www.pharmatimes.com/Article/15-02-19/Pharma_and_NICE_reject_view_NHS_pays_too_much_for_meds.aspx