rvallee
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
The question should be asked further and aiming to justify the £5M price tag. There is no reasonable justification for the price tag other than creating sunk cost momentum. It's no more sophisticated or developed than the SMILE trial with its LP BS or the 3-needle acupuncture trial we saw recently.
The cost justifications are over specialist training and weekly therapy sessions, which is labor intensive. But that's just describing what was done, not a proper justification. There is no reason why PACE couldn't have been done for 1/10th the price tag, there is no specialist knowledge involved or innovative techniques. It was big for the sake of being big, not because anything they did warranted it. There is no costly equipment or process, the training is dubious at best and they even recognize it can't be scaled to a large population, meaning it's all for show.
The only reason PACE stands is precisely because of the price tag. It justifies itself by having been so costly. The 4-day intensive thing that was done (in Norway?) was no more or less advanced or technical or any of that. This is no different than slapping a $40 price tag on a $.2 chocolate with fancy $1 decorations and getting people impressed because it's so luxurious. No one who paid $40 for that would comment it tasted like $.2 chocolate, even though that's exactly what it is.
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