LAUSR

In the recent NICE appraisals for rheumatoid arthritis the six companies involved each independently conducted systematic reviews, economic modelling and network meta-analyses [1]. Each will have incurred substantial agency fees and internal time to manage the projects. Given the models were also based on a very similar structure, each needed to solve very similar problems (independently) from the perspective of disease progression. This is a typical situation, with examples ranging from psoriasis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and multiple myeloma with multiple companies creating almost identical models. In contrast, only a few examples exist of standardised models available to use by all (under varying frameworks [2,3]) diabetes is the only example that readily springs to mind [4].