The U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency unveiled another round of measures designed to promote access to the latest medical technology, which includes a move to jettison domestic device markings in favor of unique device identifiers.

The U.K. government has committed to reduce the cost of drug and device approvals by 25% as part of a long-awaited life sciences strategy which sets out a 10-year plan for the sector.

The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has endorsed the use of pulsed field ablation for atrial fibrillation, and while several trusts in the U.K. are already using these devices for their patients, the endorsement is certain to expand utilization in the U.K., which according to data from Clarivate’s Epidemiology Intelligence may come to nearly 4 million.

The U.K. government has committed to reduce the cost of drug and device approvals by 25% as part of a long-awaited life sciences strategy which sets out a 10-year plan for the sector.

The U.K. National Health Service may or may not deploy transcatheter aortic valve replacement devices as widely as in the U.S., but the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence officially staked out the position the data are not yet compelling for anyone other than high risk patients.

To no great surprise, the U.K.’s health technology assessment body has found that the benefits of the first two approved Alzheimer’s disease drugs are too small to justify the costs. Neither Kisunla (donanemab, Eli Lilly and Co. Inc.) or Leqembi (lecanemab, Eisai Co. Ltd.), “demonstrate sufficient benefit to justify their high cost, including the cost of administering them,” the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) concluded after an extended appraisal of the two amyloid neutralizing antibodies.

The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence reported it will streamline its health technology assessment, but the bigger news might be that the agency will no longer require new technologies prove to be cost saving to win an endorsement from the agency.

While GLP-1 receptor agonists continue to grab the headlines as a treatment option for obesity, another therapy, endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG), is seeing a steady rise in demand.

The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) endorsed the use of the Orbit system by Mindtech Ltd. as a treatment for tics and Tourette syndrome.

The U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) gave the nod to a total of 11 robotic surgical systems for use in the U.K.’s trusts, but this is no free pass as the agency expects the manufacturers of these systems to gather data under this conditional coverage framework.