— ICER, CADTH and NICE have collaborated on a more consistent approach to handling clinical data —
BOSTON, April 24, 2023 – The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) and the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) are changing the way confidential information about health technologies is handled in order to streamline processes and increase transparency. Health technology evaluations must strike a critical balance between ensuring transparency of the evidence and decision-making and protecting confidential information.
The three organizations operate in different health systems but share common aims and values. Given these similarities, NICE, CADTH and ICER have been working together to create a more consistent approach to handling clinical data. Today we have published a joint statement setting out the changes.
Download: Joint Statement
For evaluations of health technologies starting from May 2023, ICER has updated our “academic-in-confidence” data policy. Previously, academic-in-confidence data was redacted from all external and public ICER documents until the earlier of:
(a) publication or presentation of such data by the data owner or study investigators;
(b) 18 months following the date of the public ICER meeting;
(c) for reports that are not subject to a public meeting, 18 months following report publication.
ICER is now reducing that 18-month period to 12 months. This decision is consistent with the update announced by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in May 2022 stating that publishing results or data that appear in a report from a health technology assessment agency is not considered duplicate publication.
About ICER
The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) is an independent non-profit research institute that produces reports analyzing the evidence on the effectiveness and value of drugs and other medical services. ICER’s reports include evidence-based calculations of prices for new drugs that accurately reflect the degree of improvement expected in long-term patient outcomes, while also highlighting price levels that might contribute to unaffordable short-term cost growth for the overall health care system.