Eisai To UK: NICE Must Change Coverage Criteria Or Else

For the second time this year, Eisai is lashing out publicly over regulatory decisions. The latest outburst is directed at the UK, where the Japanese drugmaker is threatening to reduce investment if the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, or NICE, refuses to change its criteria for recommending reimbursement for medicines. The agency is often criticized for lengthy and restrictive decisions. “When we meet your government and talk to (UK health secretary) Jeremy Hunt, we tell him that unless you improve this, we will withdraw our investment in the UK," Eisai deputy president Yutaka Tsuchiya, tells The Telegraph. He noted that investing in the UK, where Eisai has spent about $160 million on a new European headquarters and factory that employ 500 people, is four times costlier than in India. The warning comes several months after Eisai chastised the German Federal Joint Committee, which is the reimbursement agency, after deciding that Fycompa, a first-in-class treatment for uncontrolled partial epilepsy, was unproven compared with a rival treatment. The Japanese drugmaker wasted little time in issuing a press release to it was “appalled by the ruling” and later suspended sales temporarily (back story). Such public expressions of anger are becoming increasingly common among large drugmakers as they cope with the pipeline pitfalls, generic competition and growing pressure by governments to lower prices. The UK, in particular, has regularly spark industry enmit...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs