David Haslam

Abstract

The new Chairman of NICE discusses value-based pricing, cost–benefit appraisals of drugs for rare diseases and the organization's expanded remit. When the UK's National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) was launched on April Fools' Day in 1999, some of its architects had doubts it would survive. Fourteen years on NICE is going strong, providing treatment guidance and drug cost–benefit analyses. Because many markets use UK drug pricing as a reference point, NICE's decisions also have a footprint far beyond the country. Now, the rebranded National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has its first new Chairman. David Haslam, a family doctor who was previously President of the British Medical Association and President of the Royal College of General Practitioners, took up oversight of the organization in April. He told Asher Mullard about his aims for NICE and the challenges of its new remit.