ABHI (Association of British Health-Care Industries) philosophical over drugs-focused NICE (UK National Institute for Clinical Excellence):
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Has the balance shifted towards the drugs industry?" This is one of the questions that Gordon Aylward, director general of the Association of British Health-Care Industries (ABHI), posed to medical device industry members during a satellite session of NICE's annual conference - Clinical Excellence 2001 - in London last week. If so, "the answer may lie in the fact that medical devices are the perfect team-working product. Assessment of the patient is likely to be far more rigorous in the use of a medical device than in a drug," said Mr Aylward. We must accept that our place in the NHS is not necessarily at its centre, but as an important supplier to it."