Negotiations between the U.K. government and the pharmaceutical industry have broken down with no agreement over the level of rebates companies must pay back to the government under the current voluntary pricing scheme. The two sides have been locked in discussions since April, when the government agreed to bring forward a midterm review of the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, Access and Growth (VPAG).
The U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends the use of pulsed field ablation as an option to treat NHS patients with atrial fibrillation. NICE said evidence shows the procedure reduces atrial fibrillation and its symptoms, increases quality of life in the short term and raises no major safety concerns.
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. Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency reported a pilot program for the use of RWE in regulatory decision making, which is largely directed toward drug products.
The U.K.'s Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency chose five technologies for its AI Airlock pilot program as it looks to understand the best way to regulate artificial intelligence-powered medical devices so that they can be safely deployed across the national health service.
There is no evidence to support the differences in prices that the U.K.’s national health service (NHS) is paying for transcatheter heart valves from Abbott Laboratories, Boston Scientific Corp., Edwards Lifesciences Corp. and Medtronic plc, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
The U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has given people looking to lose weight another treatment option by recommending endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG) as a therapy to help treat obesity. The move comes amidst increasing awareness of the disease brought on by the growing prevalence of GLP-1 agonists.
Body: The U.K.’s Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has a program designed to facilitate more rapid market access for medical devices of urgent need, and now the agency has put money into the policy.
To date, developers of digital health technologies have had little luck with coverage and reimbursement, but the picture is slowly improving. The U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has endorsed two artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms for diagnosis of stroke, although this is limited to an evidence generation framework that puts the sponsors on the hook for generating the data that will allow unlimited use in the U.K.’s trusts.
Intravascular lithotripsy generally scores well for removal of calcification, but the U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is offering only limited endorsement of this procedure for peripheral artery disease (PAD). NICE said one of the problems with the evidence is that this procedure is often conducted in conjunction with other procedures, and thus the agency will have to see more definitive evidence before an unequivocal endorsement is justified.
