THE UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has announced major changes to its approval processes, which will see some treatments made available five months earlier than previously.
The fast track appraisals option applies to drugs which "offer exceptional value for money" with the aim of making them available to patients just one month after they are formally licensed.
Other changes to NICE procedures include a new budget impact test under which drugs that will cost more than 20 million in any one of their first three years of use will trigger "commercial discussions between the company and NHS England to mitigate the impact on the rest of the NHS".
Drugs for very rare diseases will also be evaluated on a sliding cost-benefit scale - see nice.org.uk.
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