NICE's cost effectiveness threshold

doi:10.1136/bmj.39308.560069.BE

BMJ 2007;335:358-359 (25 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.39308.560069.BE

Editorials

NICE's cost effectiveness threshold

How high should it be?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The recent judicial review instigated by the drug companiesPfizer and Eisai concerning National Institute for Health andClinical Excellence (NICE) guidance,¹ which would deny accessto three drugs for patients with mild Alzheimer's disease, anda second ongoing inquiry into NICE by the House of Commons HealthSelect Committee,² are the latest examples highlighting theimportance of NICE and the challenges it faces. The judicialreview, which ruled predominantly in favour of NICE, concernedthe procedures NICE used to arrive at their judgment, not theoutcome specifically. However, NICE has to make a judgment thatis more fundamental than the matters at stake in the judicialreview—at what point should an intervention be deemedcost effective enough to warrant public subsidy via the NationalHealth Service (NHS)?

An advantage of the way in which the United Kingdom funds theNHS is that its patients do not have to judge . . . [Full text of this article]

John Appleby, chief economist¹, Nancy Devlin, professor of economics², David Parkin, professor of economics²

¹ King's Fund, London W1G 0AN, ² City Health Economics Centre, Department of Economics, City University, London EC1V 0HB

j.appleby@kingsfund.org.uk

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