New recommendations on the use of alternative modelling approaches when evaluating cancer drugs

Posted on 10 July 2017

CHE authors have contributed to new recommendations published by the NICE Decision Support Unit on the use of partitioned survival analysis and alternative modelling approaches in economic evaluations of cancer drugs

One approach – partitioned survival analysis – has come to dominate assessments of value in oncology. Over seventy percent of cancer appraisals conducted by NICE currently use this approach which is intuitive and easy to implement, but makes strong assumptions which have not been recognised by those using the approach to inform pricing and reimbursement decisions. This new NICE Decision Support Unit Technical Support Document describes and critiques this approach as a decision modelling tool in order to assist different stakeholders in determining its appropriateness as a modelling approach and basis for informing policy decisions. The potential for application of alternative methods, such as multi-state survival analysis used within a state-transition modelling framework, is also evaluated.

Full Report is available here