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Any new drug hoping to come onto the market has to be
approved by the regulatory authorities.
The European Medicines Agency performs this role for
countries within the European Union, however, once they
have been inspected as to whether or not they are safe
to use and an effective form of treatment,
NICE performs the role of deciding which drugs
provide the dual role of giving benefit to patients and
being good value for the
NHS.
The main measure used by NICE in assessing whether
drugs are cost effective is known as
QALY, short for
quality adjusted life year.
It basically balances the expense of the drug against
the length of time it is expected to lengthen a person’s
life.
NICE uses an assumption that any treatment costing
£30,000 or less per QALY is cost-effective and whilst
other factors come into play, especially for borderline
cases, cost-effectiveness is the primary determinant.
This process understandably causes plenty of
criticisms of NICE particularly from the terminally ill
and their families whose lives may be prolonged by use
of some of the rejected drugs.
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