Updates

ICER’s concern for patients: Where’s the beef?

10.09.19

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, commonly known as ICER, wants everyone to believe that it cares about patients and that its value assessments of new drugs and treatments are intended to help them.

How do we know that? It’s become the organization’s central talking point as it makes the rounds in advance of finalizing its revised Value Assessment Framework for 2020, which describes the methodology the organization will use in its assessments beginning next year.

We have represented CancerCare, an organization that provides free, professional support services to anyone affected by cancer, in a number of exchanges ICER has had with patient advocacy and support group. We have heard ICER leaders talk about how much they care about patients, how they want to find ways to better capture what value means to patients with a given condition, and how they are trying to make sure that treatments are priced fairly so they can be accessible to those who need them.