Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has taken recent steps to fast-track the approval of the Evusheld vaccine.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent, expert body responsible for developing authoritative, evidence-based recommendations for the National Health Service on whether new medicines represent a clinically and cost-effective use of resources. The Government asked NICE to evaluate Evusheld for the prevention of COVID-19 through its technology appraisal programme in August 2022. NICE has been able to expedite the evaluation of Evusheld and released its final draft guidance on 5 May following a consultation on its draft recommendations earlier this year. NICE has unfortunately been unable to recommend Evusheld as a clinically and cost effective use of NHS resources, citing a lack of clinical evidence of its effectiveness against currently circulating variants. NICE has not yet published its final guidance.