OBJECTIVES: To develop a new method that naturally extends the UK NICE way of single-threshold for incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER). It aims to provide multiple decision criteria for assessing an ICER of expensive health technologies such as molecular-targeted cancer drugs and regenerative medicine products. METHODS:  We took a theoretical approach, provided that the cost (C)-effectiveness(E) function, C = f (E), is known regarding the treatment alternatives for a disease area, given two points P_b and P_s plotted with a pair of C and E on the C-E plane, where P_b represents the best comparator, and P_s as the second best for a new technology X located at the point P_x (e_x(effectiveness; known), c_x(cost; assumed)). At first, given a single threshold of ICER, the "expensiveness" in the C-E function was defined using a tangent/derivative method (poster presentation PRM119 by Kamae I, et.al. in ISPOR Montreal 2014). Second, we estimated three benchmarks based on the C-E function: 1) the ICER of P_b to P_s, 2) the tangent at P_b, 3) the tangent at the point on the C-E curve which intersects with the vertical line at the point: (E, C)=(e_x, 0). Then the magnitude relationship was examined between the three benchmarks and the ICER of the technology X defined by the slope of the line connecting P_x with P_b RESULTS: Multiple decision criteria at six levels were identified and formulated as for acceptance of the "expensive" cost-effectiveness of a new health technology: 1) unconditional acceptance (simple dominance), 2) preferred (extended dominance), 3) less preferred, 4) minimally preferred, 5) not preferred, but negotiable, and 6) cannot accept. Example calculations clarified how the theory works in practical setting. CONCLUSIONS: Our approach offers multiple decision criteria to assess expensive health technologies as a natural extension beyond the NICE way of single-threshold assessment.