Leela Barham

Leela Barham looks at the implications for the UK industry in the aftermath of last week's vote for Brexit.

NHS England head Simon Stevens believes the UK's PPRS needs significantly updating.

Is a more "light-touch" appraisal process the key to getting the UK's NICE to do more with less? Leela Barham reports.

March 21, 2016

NICE's notion to charge the industry for its technology appraisals looks set to become reality, writes Leela Barham.

Following the consultation on the future of England's Cancer Drug Fund, Leela Barham reviews what the stakeholders are thinking.

February 17, 2016.

Will the UK learn from past efforts to champion innovation in the NHS? Leela Barham assesses the Phase 1 evaluation of its Innovation, Health and Wealth initiative.

November 25, 2015.

The much awaited consultation on a ‘new’ Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) in England has finally emerged. Leela Barham reports.

November 12,2015.

The new interim report on the UK's Accelerated Access Review, which aims to speed up access to innovation in the NHS, is lacking in detail, writes Leela Barham.

In the midst of a leadership vacuum at the European Medicines Agency, Pharm Exec talks with the organization’s top medical officer, Hans-Georg Eichler, about its potentially game-changing drug approval program-one designed to balance safety requirements with faster patient access to the strong science now emerging from industry labs.

October 06, 2015.

No-one can say England's Accelerated Access Review, which aims to “ensure that the UK is the fastest place in the world for the design, development and widespread adoption of medical innovations" isn't aiming high, writes Leela Barham.

Leela Barham looks at the implications of another round of cuts due to England’s Cancer Drugs Fund in November.

NICE's proposed Innovation Office emerges with a new name. Leela Barham reports.

Following the Conservatives surprise majority win in the UK election, Leela Barham asks what does it mean for pharma?

EUnetHTA has developed guidelines to help “set a general framework for EUnetHTA on how to conduct economic evaluations”, arguably HTA's most controversial element. Leela Barham reports.

Leela Barham looks at what the rival parties are promising for healthcare ahead of the UK General Election next month.

That the UK's NHS has struck a deal for a national roll-out of Bexsero, GSK's vaccine for Meningitis B in infants, is good, but it needs to do better, writes Leela Barham.

The debate around NICE's threshold for cost effectiveness has always been heated; recent theories add more fuel to the fire, writes Leela Barham.

The Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) is a particular English approach to deal with rejections by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for new cancer medicines.

NICE's David Haslam discusses the UK drug watchdog's new challenge in meeting expectations around what quantitative calculations of value mean to patient access today.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA) has awarded Northwest Biotherapeutics, Inc. (Bethesda, MD) the very first “Promising Innovative Medicine”, or PIM designation, for the company’s DCVax-L product.

Value-based Pricing (VBP) was first discussed as far back as 2007 by the UK’s consumer authority, the now defunct Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

The English Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF), set up to provide funding for those products that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has not recommended for use or where their guidance isn’t yet available, remains controversial.

Accessing the latest cancer drugs always seem to be controversial. Not just because of the money but also because of the complexities of accessing treatments during their development.

In the UK, Value-Based Pricing (VBP) has morphed into Value-Based Assessment (VBA), with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) tasked with taking the loose policy concepts (established as far back as 2010) and actually implementing them.

The Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme (PPRS) is a long-standing scheme where the pharmaceutical industry, represented by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), negotiates with the Department of Health (DH) to agree how to indirectly manage the price of branded medicines.