NICE and the new DMTs


Have you heard that NICE plans to assess all 4 emerging MS DMTs in one go; instead of a single technology appraisal (STA) for each drug there will be a multiple technology appraisal (MTA)?

The drugs concerned are teriflunomide, BG12, laquinimod and alemtuzumab.

Is this good or bad news? This will depend on whether you are keen to get access to these drugs sooner than later.

According to NICE the STA process is much shorter than the MTA process; an MTA takes ~50 weeks from official invitation to participate to publication of the FAD, compared to ~34 weeks for the average STA – a 4 month delay.

The Officeof Health Economics (OHE) found that MTAs take on average 1.97 years compared to 0.96 years for STAs – a 12 month delay.

Are you prepared to wait an extra year to access these therapies?

These figures don’t include the potential delays that may result at the European Medicine Agency level in relation to the licensing of the products.

All in all this is not good news for MSers wanting to access to these oral therapies or alemtuzumab.

I can see why NICE are doing this; STAs will create a lot more work. I also hope that this process does not disadvantage any of the more effective products? 


What do you think?

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