NICE responds to publication of the government’s Life Sciences Sector Plan
We welcome the publication of the government's Life Sciences Sector Plan, which sets out how NICE will ensure patients get faster, fairer access to transformative new medicines and life-changing healthtech, while supporting a thriving life sciences industry in the UK.
Dr Sam Roberts
chief executive at NICE
This comprehensive plan establishes a clear vision for how NICE, the NHS, and industry can collaborate to drive innovation, improve patient access to cutting-edge treatments, and deliver better health outcomes while ensuring value for the taxpayer.
At NICE, we are particularly encouraged to see our role strengthened in both this new document and the government’s recently-published 10 Year Health Plan, by placing high-impact healthtech that addresses the NHS’s most pressing needs on a legal par with medicines
The implementation of a new national pathway to ensure that NICE-approved devices, diagnostics and digital technologies reach everyone who needs them, is an important first step to remove the ‘postcode lottery’ for innovation.
This change will also position the NHS as a powerful customer for one of the UK’s fastest-growing industries. From digital therapies to diagnostic tools, NICE will work with industry to bring life-changing innovations into the NHS.
On medicines, the plan will transform how we work with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), creating an aligned pathway to bring new medicines to patients 3 to 6 months faster than today. Together, we’ll deliver streamlined decisions on medicines, joint advice and parallel approvals that will boost the speed of decisions, contribute to reducing admin costs by 25% and create clearer routes to market for groundbreaking new treatments.
In addition, we’ll expand dynamic assessments of priority care pathways – updating our guidance to reflect changes in evidence, costs and clinical practice, driving smarter spending. In practice this means we’ll offer some medicines and technologies to more people, put treatments in a sequence so that clinicians know what to offer when, and phase-out some treatments to create headroom for new innovations.
What’s more, we’ll go further to evolve how we develop our guidance, ensuring a transparent, predictable and timely process. As a first step, we’ll pilot a proportionate, standardised approach to evaluating medicines that can be used for multiple different conditions. And as part of the Biosimilar Taskforce we’ll help to drive early and widespread uptake of biosimilars to release cash savings in the system where possible.
I look forward to working at pace with our partners across the health system and the life sciences industry to put this plan into action. The NICE board will agree next steps and milestones to implement the changes quickly, at our meeting this month.
Together with the 10 Year Health Plan, this plan presents us with a unique opportunity to truly transform people’s lives through better, more equitable access to innovation. At NICE, we are committed to playing our part in ensuring that the UK remains at the forefront of life sciences innovation while delivering a sustainable and effective health service for all.