BMJ  2008;336:1035 (10 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39574.351782.DB

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Appeal Court rules that NICE procedure was unfair

¹ BMJ

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The hopes of people with mild Alzheimer’s disease of having access to acetylcholinesterase inhibitors through the NHS were boosted last week when three appeal court judges ruled that a key step in the process for appraising the drugs for NHS use was "procedurally unfair."

The court unanimously overturned a High Court ruling that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) acted fairly when it refused to supply the drug company Eisai with a full version of the computer model it used to decide that the treatment would not be cost effective for the early stages of the illness (BMJ 2007;335:319; doi: 10.1136/bmj.39307.630347.DB).

The drugs cost £2.50 (3.17; $4.90) a day. In 2004 NICE decided that they were not cost effective for mild Alzheimer’s disease. It will now have to give Eisai the "fully executable" version of the model in place of the read only model . . . [Full text of this article]

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