Policy responses to antimicrobial resistance: how much should we pay for new antimicrobials?

Growing resistance to antibiotics is a worldwide public health problem and concerns have been raised about the limited number of new antibiotics being developed.  Following the 2016 O’Neill Report in the UK on antimicrobial resistance, schemes to incentivise the development of new antibiotics have been introduced internationally. The UK NHS has introduced a novel funding arrangement where the NHS pays a periodic ‘rent’ to use a product that is ‘delinked’ from the volume used.  The aim is to provide predictable revenue to manufacturers when good stewardship might restrict the product’s use until resistance to existing products makes this necessary.  This funding scheme requires an understanding of the expected long-term value of the new product so the NHS an agree a suitable payment.  As part of a pilot of a NICE evaluation programme, evaluations of two products were undertaken: ceftazidime with avibactam and cefiderocol. 

The learning objectives of this talk will be to understand (i) the limitations of standard HTA methods to evaluate new antibiotics in this challenging policy environment; (ii) the novel methods employed in these evaluations; and (iii) the methodological research priorities to improve future evaluations.