On behalf of Patients Rising Now, we appreciate the opportunity ICER allows for stakeholders, including patient advocates and patients themselves, to comment on ICER’s draft evidence report and voting questions on Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell (CAR-T) for B-Cell Cancers.
In assessing ICER’s draft evidence report and voting questions, we choose to view through the lens of a patient, and gauge how the assessment would impact their access to the therapy under review, the future innovation of this and other therapies, and the reforms that may be needed in ensuring utilization of both. With this as our guide, we must first state our serious concerns and enduring objections.
The ICER website states: ‘Patients are at the core of ICER’s mission to help provide an independent source of analysis of evidence on effectiveness and value to improve the quality of care that patients receive.”
Though we acknowledge ICER has made some improvements in relations with patients and advocates, this draft evidence falls short of both the letter and the spirit of ICER’s stated core and mission.