Aimed Alliance Calls on ICER To Prevent Discrimination of Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Washington, DC – September 30, 2016 – The Alliance for the Adoption of Innovations in Medicine (Aimed Alliance)-urged the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) to consider patient-defined value of non-small cell lung cancer (NCSLC) treatments and the discrimination that can result from drug rationing proposals.

In response to ICER's Draft Evidence Report, entitled "Treatment Options for Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Effectiveness and Value" (Draft Report), Aimed Alliance noted that the use of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) is inconsistent with American values, such as consumer choice and access to quality health care. QALYs put a price tag on the value of a human life that merely reflects the individual's diagnosis and deems those with chronic, debilitating, and rare conditions, such as NCSLC, as being worth less than the rest of the population. They treat individuals' lives and health as a commodity and ignore the patients' and practitioners' individualized concept of the value of treatment. Therefore, QALYs should not be used to set a threshold for a large population of individuals with one-of-a-kind life narratives across a complicated health care system.

In addition, Aimed Alliance encouraged ICER to consider the following points, among others:

Any value assessment must consider real-life benefits based on the unique situation of the individual patient rather than the price of the drug alone.

Patients must have access to options given that many patients with cancer respond differently to various treatments based on their genetics.

Sufficient clinical data must be available before a medication's value can be determined.

The patient's perspective should be assessed when defining value, including indirect expenses and non-health-related quality of life outcomes (e.g., intrinsic value to the patient, family, and community).

The practitioner perspective must be included in value assessments in a meaningful way.

Patients with NCSLC must have access to all FDA-approved options available to them. Value-based frameworks that result in price controls and drug rationing impedes such access, thereby depriving patients of their right to choose for themselves whether they want to use life-saving treatments that can significantly improve their quality of life.

To read Aimed Alliance's comment, please click here. To read ICER's final report, please click here.

Aimed Alliance is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works to improve health care in the U.S. by expanding access to novel, evidence-based treatments and technologies.