NICE assessments could reform in new superbug plan

The UK government has published a new five-year plan aimed at tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR), including a new NHS reimbursement scheme backed by NICE to encourage pharma to develop new antibiotics. Health secretary Matt Hancock announced the new plan at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in order to raise awareness among global leaders about the scale of the problem. Over the last few decades, development of new antibiotics has almost ground to a halt as big pharma does not think it is worth the low return on investment.
An independent review of AMR by economist Jim O’Neill and commissioned by former prime minister David Cameron and published in summer 2016, has already blamed the dearth of new antibiotics on a “market failure” that does not sufficiently reward R&D. At the same time, more and more bacterial strains resistant to older drugs are emerging, which could kill 10 million people every year by 2050, according to estimates in the report. The new five-year action plan for 2019-2024 builds on a five-year document covering the last five years and was accompanied by a 20-year vision on how to tackle AMR. Proposals in the document include de-linking payments made to companies from the volumes of the medicines sold, to basing payment on a NICE-led assessment of their value – but the document gave no further details about how the scheme will work.