Patients want bigger role in ICER assessments

Patient groups and medical product manufacturers are asking the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) to implement major changes in the way it assesses the value of drugs and devices. The parties submitted their recommendations in response to ICER's solicitation of public comments on its value assessment framework.

All 17 patient advocacy groups and most of the 20 commenters representing manufacturers' views challenged ICER to integrate patient perspectives into its operations more comprehensively, and to incorporate the views of a diverse range of patients in evaluations of products' benefits. Biopharmaceutical companies and some patient groups argued that ICER's methodology was skewed against innovative technologies, and that it favors products that target small populations. Some industry commenters called for ICER to scrap or overhaul its assessment of the budget impacts of drug and devices. ...