The Value of NICE Scientific Advice

OBJECTIVES: The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) launched its advice service, NICE Scientific Advice, in 2009. A previous study reported that medicinal products that received scientific advice had a reduced time for NICE appraisal than those that did not. To identify the recent impact of scientific advice on time for NICE appraisal, we conducted a study on medicinal products that sought scientific advice from 2020 to 2023.

METHODS: This study examined NICE Technology Appraisal (TA) and Highly Specialised Technologies (HST) guidance published from June 2020 to May 2023. It identified technologies that received scientific advice from the NICE Advice database and matched the intended conditions to the published guidance. The study compared the time from marketing authorisation to guidance publication for technologies that received scientific advice verses those that did not.

RESULTS: 230 TA and HST guidance documents were published during the study period and were included in the analysis.

Of the 230 technologies analysed, 51 of these had received scientific advice. For these products, it took a median of 312 days from marketing authorisation to the publication of NICE guidance, compared with 400 days for those that did not receive scientific advice. It is important to note that various other factors may impact time to guidance publication, but these would apply to both technologies that have and have not received scientific advice, hence these were not measured as part of this study.

CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study support previous findings, showing the benefits of NICE scientific advice for medicinal technologies. Products that received scientific advice had a shorter time from marketing authorisation to the publication of the NICE TA or HST guidance.