OBJECTIVES: The Israeli National Health Insurance Law stipulates a National List of Health Services (NLHS) which all residents are entitled to. Every year, the government determines the additional budget to be allocated for new health technologies on the NLHS. A public national advisory committee (PNAC) evaluates and prioritizes all proposed technologies. The PNAC takes into account mainly the efficacy of the new technology, but also economic, social and ethical aspects. However, until now, no standard tool was available for grading the extent of benefit of therapies. The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) published recently its Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale (ESMO-MCBS) for cancer medicines. The scale is graded 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, for treatments of advanced/metastatic cancers (the 'palliative setting'), where grades 5 and 4 represent the highest level of proven clinical benefit. Our objective was to examine, in retrospect, whether the novel cancer drugs that were recommended for reimbursement by the PNAC, had higher ESMO-MCBS scores than the candidate drugs that were not approved in the 2015 NLHS update process. METHODS: ESMO-MCBS scores were obtained for the cancer drugs that were candidates for the 2015 NLHS update. Fisher's Exact Test was used to compare scores of drugs approved and those not approved for reimbursement. RESULTS: CONCLUSIONS: The Israeli PNAC's decisions regarding reimbursement for novel cancer drugs seem to be in concordance with ESMO-MCBS scores. The structured and consistent approach of the ESMO-MCBS could further assist in framing the appropriate use of limited public resources to deliver effective and affordable cancer care.