Does NICE want pricing power?

Last week, the chief of the U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence accused drug companies of overpricing their products. Now, sources are telling PharmaTimes that the attack signals that NICE wants a "central role in price negotiation" as the government is overhauling its Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme.

There's an interim pricing deal now, details of which were released two weeks ago. But experts are saying that the new deal, scheduled to start in January, will be a more radical departure from the past arrangement with industry, which guaranteed drugmakers profits on their products. And NICE may be partly responsible for that. "There will be regulation on prices; NICE will be involved in it and prices will go down," pledged Joe Collier, a medicines policy expert.

- read the PharmaTimes article [1]
- see the post [2] at Pharmalot

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