France's Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) has posted an  overview of public consultations  undertaken by the agency over the last few years, as well as an international survey of similar agencies in other countries such as the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). The document release is a first step in the preparation of a methodological guide for public participation in the development of health technology assessments. ...

The UK's health technology assessment (HTA) body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellent (NICE), has voted to recommended Bayer's drug Xarelto (rivaroxaban). Xarelto is used to treat deep vein thrombosis, prevent recurrent deep vein thrombosis (VTE) and prevent pulmonary embolism in adults diagnosed with acute deep vein thrombosis (DVT). The decision to recommend the drug is based on additional information that rivaroxaban was more clinically and c...

Under a new plan put forth by the Secretary of the UK's National Health Service (NHS), Andrew Lansley, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) would no longer direct NHS's prescribing habits, reports InPharm . "Speaking at the NICE conference, Lansley said NICE's cost effectiveness role would be replaced by the new Value-Based Pricing (VBP) system on 1 January 2014," wrote InPharm . "NICE will still examine the cost effectiveness of drugs, but ...

A study looking at the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), a healthcare rationing body in charge of reimbursement decisions in the UK, has found the body to take five years on average to clear a drug for use and reimbursement, with some drugs taking as long as nine years to be cleared. The Telegraph notes , "the process often takes much longer as in some cases NICE does not begin its assessment until a treatment has been on the market fo...

The European Commission is  requesting input  from stakeholders, including drug and device companies, as to "how the consultation with stakeholders in the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) network's activities could be facilitated."  An "informal" HTA network of member state entities that conduct relative effectiveness work-such as the UK's NICE and Germany's IQWiG-was mandated in 2011 "to support collaboration between Member States in developing and sha...

José Agenor Alvarez, Director of Brazil's national agency, Anvisa, attended the 3rd meeting of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) supported Network for Technology Assessment in Health of the Americas (RedTSA). Since Brazil is developing a national health system, Anvisa sees Health Technology Assessment (HTA) as an essential tool for incorporating new technologies into the health system. The RedTSA meeting was held in Lima Peru on 26-27 April, with repres...

A comparator study undertaken by Germany's Institute for Quality and Economy in Healthcare (IQWiG) has found the drug ipilimumab provides substantial additional benefit to patients suffering from advanced melanoma.  In a three-pronged randomized clinical trial against "best supportive care", IQWiG found the drug extended life expectancy by 10 months as compared to 6.5 months with the comparator.   The drug, however, is not without serious immune-medi...

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the UK's health technology assessment (HTA) body, fired back against GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) CEO Andrew Witty after he remarked that the agency is purposefully delaying drugs to save the government money. "We have not been asked to change the basis of our assessments simply to save money," said NICE chief executive Sir Andrew Dillon. "Our independent advisory committees specifically look for innovation i...