Sector: Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology

The biotechnology industry is waiting expectantly after the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the body determining which drugs should be available on the NHS, launched the Innovation Pass, a pilot scheme enabling drug developers to bring innovative medicines for rarer diseases to market sooner.

First mooted as part of the ‘Blueprint’ report from the government’s Office for Life Sciences in July, the Innovation Pass is designed to provide patients with unmet medical needs with access to the innovative treatments being developed by biotech ventures. Patients with rare conditions will, the theory goes, be allowed to receive certain innovative drugs for a period of three years on the NHS, which in turn both allows the biotech companies to collect plenty of crucial medical data and provides NICE with a better opportunity to assess the cost-effectiveness of the treatments.

NICE and the Department of Health will conduct a ten-week consultation on the scheme, which, once launched, is to be funded by a ring-fenced £25 million budget in 2010/11, with funding for future years to be discussed in the consultation.

‘The introduction of an Innovation Pass signals to the investment community that the government understands and supports the innovative life science sector in the UK,’ says Clive Dix, chairman of the BioIndustry Association.