As NICE and the UK Go, So Goes the Globe in Evaluating Drugs

Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the pharmacy shelves. A new British empire of a sort may be in the offing: a model for judging the cost-effectiveness of new medicines.

At least it’s shaping up that way. The U.K.’s controversial approach for deciding whether medical technology, including drugs, is worth its cost is winning favour with national governments around the globe. The model used by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or NICE, a British government agency, is already influencing health policies in Austria, Brazil, Columbia, Thailand and beyond, the New York Times reports.

Sky-rocketing prices for drugs and discounts the U.K. has snagged from manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson and Novartis, have whetted the appetites of governments looking to do the same, the paper says. The story is the latest in the Times series on “The Evidence Gap.”