The Independent of London reports that the British health watchdog group with the ironic acronym of NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) has ruled that the goverment won't pay for Avastin (bevacizumab) and Erbitux (cetuximab) for treating advanced bowel cancer, saying the drugs were not cost-effective.
It will never happen in this country and I can already hear the great shouts of vested interests crying, "Hooray, and it never should happen."
But we don't have a NICE in this country. And past attempts in this country to discuss, weigh the evidence for, and perhaps even reject coverage for new technologies including drugs have often been ambushed by special interests.
Indeed, the British NICE decision is already being attacked by some.
But NICE ruled on the evidence, with a spokesperson concluding: "Although bevacizumab does show some increased benefit over standard treatment, the appraisal committee was not persuaded that it was cost- effective in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer. The evidence available on cetuximab does not compare it with current standard treatment and therefore we are not able to assess whether it is any better than existing treatments or whether the National Health Service could justify spending money on the drug."
With the U.S. outspending any other country in the world on health care, yet with some outcomes that are worse than those in much poorer countries, we don't have a cost-effectiveness watchdog like NICE.
Maybe it would be a nice idea.
Posted by schwitz at August 25, 2006 11:35 AM | TrackBack