White Rose Initiative on Health Technology Assessment

WRIHTA was established in recognition of the significant shared research agenda of the ScHARR and CHEBS at the University of Sheffield, the Academic Unit of Health Economics at the University of Leeds, and the Centre for Health Economics of the University of York. Its objective is to facilitate effective collaboration between the three research centres in order to promote progress on the shared areas of interest.

WRIHTA holds regular joint seminars to discuss position papers and identify collaborative research funding opportunities.

Since November 2003, WRIHTA has produced working papers on issues as diverse as the use of probabilistic sensitivity analysis within the NICE Appraisal process; the role of patients in providing health state preference data for health care resource allocation processes; the appropriate methods for the appraisal of orphan drugs; the rationale for the choice of discount rate in the NICE appraisal process and a critical review of the role of economic evaluations alongside clinical trials. Where appropriate, these position papers are released as Discussion Papers from the Universities of Sheffield and York.

The future work programme includes the use of the Net Benefit Framework in pharmaceutical licensing; and methods for incorporating equity weights into cost effectiveness models.

Publications and Discussion Papers:

• Claxton K, Sculpher M, Culyer A, McCabe C, Briggs A, Akehurst R, Buxton M, Brazier J. Discounting and cost effectiveness in NICE - stepping back to sort out a confusion. Health Economics 2006; 15(1):1-4.
  
• McCabe C, Claxton K, Tsuchiya A. Orphan drugs and the National Health Service: Should we value rarity? BMJ 2005;331:1016-1019.
  
• O´Hagan A, McCabe C, Akehurst R, Brennan A, Briggs A, Claxton K, Fenwick E, Fryback D, Sculpher M, Spiegelhalter D, Willan A. Incorporation of uncertainty in health economic modelling studies. Pharmacoeconomics 2005;23(6):529-536.
  
• Sculpher M, Claxton K, Drummond M, McCabe C. Whither trial-based economic evaluation for health care decision making? Health Economics, forthcoming.
• Brazier J, Akehurst R, Brennan A, Dolan P, Claxton K, O’Hagan A, McCabe C, Sculpher M, Tsuchiya A. Should patients have a greater role in valuing health states? Applied Health Economics and Health Policy 2005;4(4):201-208.
  
• Culyer A, McCabe C, Briggs A, Claxton K, Buxton M, Akehurst R, Sculpher M, Brazier J. NICE as a threshold searcher: rationale and implications. Journal of Health Services Research and Policy, forthcoming.
• McCabe C, Tsuchiya A, Claxton K, Raftery J. Drugs for exceptionally rare diseases: a commentary on Hughes et al. Quarterly Journal of Medicine, forthcoming.
  http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/hcl033?ijkey=JxgK8k0a8eo5bth&keytype=ref
• McCabe C, Claxton K, O'Hagan A. Why licensing authorities need to consider the net value of new drugs in assigning review priorities: addressing the tension between licensing and reimbursement. Int Journal of Technol Assessment in Health Care 2008;24(2):1-7.
• Claxton K, Briggs A, Buxton MJ, Culyer AJ, McCabe C et al. Value based pricing for NHS drugs: an opportunity not to be missed. BMJ 2008;336:251-4.
• Kharroubi S, McCabe C. Modelling HUI2 health state preference data using a nonparametric Bayesian method. Medical Decision Making (forthcoming).
• Claxton K, Sculpher M, McCabe C, Briggs A, Buxton M, Brazier J, Akehurst R, O'Hagan A. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis for NICE technology assessment: not an optional extra. Health Economics 2005;14(4):339-48.