In a letter to the Institute for Clincial and Economic Review (ICER), Partnership to Improve Patient Care Chairman (PIPC) Chairman Tony Coelho provided feedback on ICER's draft evidence report for Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH). Chairman Coelho criticized ICER's model for continuing to rely on the discriminatory quality-adjusted-life-years (QALY) metric, writing that it is an inappropriate metric to accurately show health gains for NASH patients. The model also makes inaccurate assumptions about liver transplant procedures. "ICER’s model exacerbates the shortcomings of the QALY by discounting the future health gains incorrectly," the letter states. "NASH is a complex condition, and it is important ICER holistically capture the complexity and the impact the disease has on individual patients and public health."

More than 50 leading groups representing patients and people with disabilities joined the Partnership to Improve Patient Care’s (PIPC) comment letter to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) regarding its assessment of remdesivir and other treatments for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The letter offers strong criticism of ICER’s use of flawed methodologies in its assessment, noting that ICER has chosen to completely ignore vast array of stakeholder feedback it has received over the last five years on its framework and processes. The groups reiterate that it’s imperative that discriminatory assessment tools like the quality-adjusted-life-years (QALY) metric are not used in determining the price of treatments, especially during public health emergencies such as COVID-19. “We have consistently raised the red flag that ICER’s value assessments are methodologically flawed and not fit for the purpose of making decisions related to coverage, reimbursement and incentive programs by policymakers and payers,” the letter states. “ The latest assessment from ICER validates our concerns.”