NICE has given the green light to Akcea Therapeutics’ ultra-rare disease treatment Tegsedi (inotersen) after the company offered a better “commercial arrangement.”

Interest in annuity payment models is growing among companies and payers, but such models could be risk financial viability of small biotechs.

Paying for expensive one-off treatments in installments rather than one lump sum could be appropriate for some products, but fails to address wider systemic problems.

Scotland’s health technology appraisal body has OKd Novartis’s Aimovig for migraines. England’s NICE has postponed a meeting on the drug after a large number of comments were received following the institute’s initial knockback.

The pricing of combination therapies, particularly in oncology, remains a headache for payers and companies.

Indication-based pricing could become a reality with better infrastructure to track utilization data.