Potential new treatments for brain cancer are being hampered by the inability of pharmaceutical companies to supply the drugs needed for research and regulatory delays, a leading cancer charity has warned.
Brain tumors kill more children and adults under 40 in Britain than any other form of cancer, but research has been underfunded for years. About 12,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with a primary brain tumor each year.
Brain Tumor Research is concerned about reports from senior doctors about a reluctance to provide the expensive drugs needed for research because brain cancer is a rare condition.
Hugh Adams of the charity said the supply of new medicines was being “stifled” by a lack of research capacity and difficulties in obtaining medicines for trials. He said: “We need a new framework that treats this disease as a clinical priority.”
Siobhain McDonagh, a Labor MP, has campaigned for a bill to support brain tumor research after her sister, Baroness McDonagh, the former Labor general secretary, died last June from a glioblastoma brain tumor. McDonagh will introduce a bill to Parliament this month calling on MPs to back measures to increase the number of clinical trials.
She wants the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the National Institute for Care and Excellence to fast-track applications for the approval of treatments for rarer cancers. She also wants new regulations that would require pharmaceutical companies to provide a supply of drugs to treat brain tumors. “We want to put pressure on the pharmaceutical companies to supply the drugs so they can be tried,” she said. She said companies were reluctant to supply the drugs because it was not financially viable or because they were concerned about the risk of adverse outcomes.
Paul Mulholland, a consultant in medical oncology, submitted evidence to the parliamentary health and social care committee last month about the difficulties in obtaining drugs for research into glioblastoma tumors. Some of these drugs may be treatments for other cancers, which could potentially be repurposed for brain cancer.
“There has been no improvement in treatment for 30 years,” he said. “The main problem … is that we are not doing enough clinical trials. The pharmaceutical industry has not supplied the drugs to conduct these studies and is not interested in the patient group. That’s why we need regulatory changes to encourage the pharmaceutical industry to invest in finding a cure.”
In May 2018, the government announced £40 million for brain tumor research, but an all-party parliamentary group on brain tumors concluded in February last year that only £15 million had been allocated, with “£6 million of this cannot be easily identified as relevant to brain tumors”. tumors”.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Brain cancer is a devastating disease, which is why we have made £40 million available for research projects that specifically look for new treatments and therapies to tackle this disease.”
Amit Aggarwal, executive director of medical affairs at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), said: “Pharmaceutical companies exist to find, develop and deliver effective treatments for patients and are already supplying medicines for external clinical trials for new applications. voluntarily, also for brain cancer.
“Forcing companies to release their products to any request risks undermining public trust in medicine if, for example, a drug doesn’t work for a new use, or worse, something goes wrong in a clinical trial where the original company doesn’t was involved.”