Product Approval Elsewhere
In many non-US western countries a 'fourth hurdle' of cost effectiveness analysis has developed before new technologies can be provided. This focuses on the efficiency (in terms of the cost per QALY) of the technologies in question rather than their efficacy. In England NICE approval requires technologies be made available by the NHS, whilst similar arrangements exist with the Scottish Medicines Consortium in Scotland and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee in Australia. A product must pass the threshold for cost-effectiveness if it is to be approved. Treatments must represent 'value for money' and a net benefit to society. There is much speculation that a NICE style framework may be implemented in the USA in an attempt to decrease Medicare and Medicaid spending by balancing benefits to patients versus profits for the medical industry.
In the UK, the British National Formulary is the core guide for pharmacists and clinicians.
Read more about this topic: Pharmaceutical Industry
Famous quotes containing the words product and/or approval:
“Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing.... Taboos after all are only hangovers, the product of diseased minds, you might say, of fearsome people who hadn’t the courage to live and who under the guise of morality and religion have imposed these things upon us.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“At the heart of the matter of masculine excess is a great longing for the love and approval of a father, a man who can tell another man that his masculinity is splendid enough and he can now relax.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)