The potential changes are part of the largest review ever carried out into the methods and processes NICE uses to produce its guidance on health technologies.
Meindert Boysen, deputy chief executive and director of the Centre for Health Technology Evaluation at NICE, said: “NICE has a global reputation for reasonable, robust and responsive methods for health technology evaluation, that support patients, the NHS and the life sciences industry now and in the future. We want to build on this reputation.
“These are exciting times, where innovation in science and technology are of great interest to many in our country. As we develop a new regulatory and access environment for medicines, medical devices, diagnostics and digital health technologies, our methods should be aimed at supporting early patient access at a reasonable cost to the NHS, for example by encouraging companies to launch their products in the UK first.
“Ensuring that our methods are clear, transparent and predictable should allow us to speed up evaluation processes for new and emerging technologies. This is particularly important in our response to COVID-19, but also allows us to further consider how to best evaluate the value of specific new technologies such as cell and gene therapies.”