The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7335 p139
5 February 2005

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NHS should pay premium price for rare disease treatments

The NHS should pay the premium price for drugs to treat patients with rare conditions, according to a public panel that advises the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.

The NICE Citizens Council recommended that the NHS should first consider whether the disease was life-threatening when deciding whether to pay the premium price.

Other criteria that should be considered before making a decision are whether the treatment would improve rather than just stabilise a condition and the severity of the disease. NICE will take into account the council’s views when it draws up its own report into “ultra-orphan drugs”, which it expects to deliver to the DoH this spring.