The cost of a QALY.
BACKGROUND
Current regulation of drug approvals has caused considerable controversy as entrusted to the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, and has led to a lack of availability of modern medicines on the basis of calculations made of 'value'.


OBJECTIVE
We have examined the assessment tool used by National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) to establish the cost of drugs in order to assess whether it is a reasonable and objective evaluation methodology.


METHODS
A review of the methods of analysis.


METHODS
An objective assessment of the value of the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY).


RESULTS
We conclude that current methods used by NICE to assess drug costs are arbitrary, subjective and fail to reflect the true costs for patients, which are grossly overestimated.


CONCLUSIONS
NICE needs to look again at the evaluation methods for calculating drug costs, and change their methodology from a subjective to an objective measure of true cost.
Imperial College, London.
R
R
Kirkdale
J
J
Krell
C O'Hanlon
CO
Brown
M
M
Tuthill
J
J
Waxman
D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis / Q000191:economics; D016527:Drug Costs / Q000941:ethics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D006077:Government Agencies; D006801:Humans; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D019057:Quality-Adjusted Life Years; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical / Q000191:economics*; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D006113:United Kingdom