As the regulatory and access system for drugs, medical technologies, diagnostics, and digital health technologies continues to evolve at pace, it can be challenging for companies to keep up with the latest developments. Therefore, more companies from the life sciences industry are prioritising early engagement with NICE to ensure they are focussing on the right areas in their evidence generation strategies.
We want to make sure that we can offer timely advice to companies that are developing high priority technologies for the NHS, but as a result of the increased engagement, there is currently a waiting time of several months for new scientific advice projects. To address this, from December 2021 we are reserving priority slots in our workplan for products that address health system needs.
NICE Scientific Advice’s services will still be available to all companies who wish to seek our advice, and requests for advice will not be rejected through the prioritisation process. The only difference is that if you do meet the criteria for a priority slot, we hope to be able to initiate your project faster.
More details on how NICE will prioritise these projects can be found on the NICE Scientific Advice webpage.
What should companies do?
We encourage all companies, regardless of how their technology might be prioritised, to make contact with us as early as possible. This will still provide you with the best chance of securing your preferred timeslot. In addition to this prioritisation system, we are also increasing capacity within the team to better meet demand for all projects.
We will continue to review this new approach based on demand for our services and feedback from companies, and we welcome companies to share their views by emailing scientificadvice@nice.org.uk.
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