In a letter to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), the Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) submitted comments on ICER's assessment of gene therapies for Sickle Cell Disease (SCD).
PIPC Chair Tony Coelho expressed disappointment that ICER is still incorporating some of the same flaws that were pointed out in PIPC's 2020 comment letter, including ICER's continued use of the discriminatory quality-adjusted-life-years (QALY) metric. The assessment also fails to acknowledge that standard of care is often not standardized, and does not adequately incorporate pain and other concerns such as fatigue into its model.
"ICER should prioritize the incorporation of heterogeneity of patients, both in terms of how they experience the disease, but also in terms of pure population group heterogeneity and the functional difference in access to and quality of the healthcare available to them," wrote Chair Coelho. "PIPC urges ICER to reconsider the use of the QALY and ensure it is using accurate and representative inputs in its model."
"ICER should prioritize the incorporation of heterogeneity of patients, both in terms of how they experience the disease, but also in terms of pure population group heterogeneity and the functional difference in access to and quality of the healthcare available to them," wrote Chair Coelho. "PIPC urges ICER to reconsider the use of the QALY and ensure it is using accurate and representative inputs in its model."
| icer_scd_2023_final_for_submission_.pdf |
