Conflicts of Interest of NICE Advisors

There was an apparent report yesterday that Members of Parliament and being asked to investigate the Conflicts of Interest of the Advisors to NICE.


There is a view that people who advise NICE all have conflicts of Interests because they may be recieving funds from pharma. 

If they are not recieving anything from Pharma are these the people we want advising on Pharma Issues, because if they are not advising pharma are they any good? 

The problem is finding a neuro who doesn't have a conflict and importantly as virtual all academic neurologists will have had some dealings with pharma. We could ask were does the funding for regulators come from......Pharma perhaps?

However if the people advising are so in the pocket of pharma, why is it that NICE have delayed and rejected most MS drugs in their time...Which drugs get an easy ride to prescription.

However the central issue is cost, if the drug is expense NICE play a delaying role to beat down the price, if the drug is cheap you don't really need a nice...There seems to be a mess up about over prescribing a statin, it wouldn't have happened if the drug cost more than £2.30 a month:-). Get a cheap drug for MS and you don't have to worry about nice.

However, it is right that the procedures are reviewed such that this can be transparent.

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