For a long time, pharmaceutical companies have wanted a more joined up approach to the industry from Government. It was a key ask when we met the Prime Minister four months ago and, with the creation of the Office for Life Sciences, I believe he has obliged, writes Richard Barker, Director-General of the ABPI

There is nothing more important than visiting your key customers but the reverse is also true, writes Dr Richard Barker, Director-General of the ABPI

Budget 2009: Chancellor Alistair Darling announces plans to look at the tax system to encourage innovation

The recommendations highlighted in our submission are as follow:
• NICE should find methods to broaden the types of value considered in appraisal and reduce the role of the cost per QALY as the overriding decision-making criterion. In particular, the following factors should be given additional weight in decision-making:
- unmet need (lack of alternative treatment; disease severity; disease rarity)
- attributes of high importance to patients, carers, families and society generally
- impact on future innovation
• This may require a change in the Secretary of State’s Directions to NICE.
• The scoping stage of the technology appraisal process should be used to clarify specific issues for consideration outside the ICER, e.g. definition of unmet clinical need valuable to patients, treatment of comparators, areas of uncertainty in the evidence base
• NICE should adopt new structured approaches to decision-making to account for these important factors; and use of these factors should be far more transparent than currently.
• NICE should take account of the long-term, stepwise and uncertain nature of delivering innovation and consider the implications of its decisions on future developments in the field under consideration.
• Industry should work with NICE, its staff and the academic centres it uses to jointly enhance understanding of the innovation process, its complexity, its stepwise nature and its value dimensions.
• The output from the review of NICE’s topic selection process should be considered together with the conclusions from this study.

The ABPI’s 3 year strategic plan lays out the Association’s commitment to becoming world class...

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry
12 Whitehall
London SW1A 2DY
Tel: +44 (0) 870 890 4333

The OHE provides independent research, advisory and consultancy services on policy implications and economic issues within the pharmaceutical, health care and biotechnology industries.
Visit the OHE website for more information and to find out about OHE Consulting

The PMCPA is responsible for administering the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry at arm's length from the ABPI. The Code regulates the promotion of medicines for prescribing to health professionals and the provision of information to the public about prescription only medicines in the UK