If the UK’s planned distribution of a vaccine for covid-19 is to win widespread support it should be both clinically and cost effective. One dilemma is between prioritizing those at […]
James Raftery’s NICE blogs
James Raftery: A more fundamental review of QALYs is needed
Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) have become common in research, partly due to being used by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). A long running effort to update […]
James Raftery: NICE’s proposed new QALY modifier for appraising highly specialised technologies
After a consultation on changes to its methods for appraising health technologies, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has gone public with its way forward. As discussed previously, the consultation […]
James Raftery: Changes to how NICE appraises drugs and other health technologies
The recent proposals by NICE and NHS England to change arrangements for evaluating and funding drugs and other health technologies not only tidy up the processes, but introduce some important new […]
James Raftery on a short history of NICE
A terrible beauty: A short history of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence by Nicholas Timmins, Michael Rawlins and John Appleby. Free download. This story of NICE is […]
James Raftery: Cancer drugs fund—consultation on bringing it under NICE
Conflict of interest: the proposals reviewed here are similar to those advocated in a 2014 BMJ editorial “Reforming the Cancer Drugs Fund” to which I was a co-author. I have […]
James Raftery: Ever higher cancer drug prices—driven by US policies and genetic sequencing
The high prices charged by companies for cancer drugs has led to lots of speculation, but very little explanation. The most interesting attempt to explain these high prices has been […]
James Raftery: Cancer drug prices and olaparib
NICE’s provisional rejection of Astra Zeneca’s olaparib (Lynparza) for a genetic subset (BRCA1/2 gene mutation) of ovarian cancers has several themes which have not been commented on. One is that […]
James Raftery: NICE and value based pricing—is this the end?
Since Andrew Lansley announced in 2010 that the NHS would in future use “value based pricing” in its purchases of pharmaceuticals, civil servants and (more recently) the National Institute for […]
James Raftery: NICE: “inconsistent,” “in large part arbitrary and opaque,” according to friends
A strong critique just published points to logical inconsistencies in NICE’s consideration of social values, specifically in how it handles quality adjusted life years (QALYs). Since these are key to […]