I can’t imagine how sad it is to know that promising cancer treatments like Enhertu exist, but not have access to them because the price is too high for the NHS (Women in England and Wales denied an ‘exciting’ drug that can stop the spread of breast cancer, June 3).
With strong encouragement from pharmaceutical companies, the blame for such shortcomings often falls on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), the government body that advises the NHS on whether medicines provide value for money.
But high drug prices, including that of Enhertu (average course of treatment: £117,857), are not something natural or necessarily occurring. Although pharmaceutical companies are known for their opacity when it comes to the true cost of drug production, the NHS has repeatedly been shown to have overcharged for similar cancer treatments. Most clearly, Trastuzumab, a key component of Enhertu, came first sold in Britain at a price ten times higher than the actual cost of production.
The unavailability of important medicines is the result of business decisions made by companies primarily concerned with keeping prices high to maximize profits. When people’s lives are at stake, this is unforgivable. Especially when you consider the monoclonal antibody technology on which Enhertu was partially based developed with huge amounts of public funding from the UK Medical Research Council.
In cases where the price of medicines is beyond the reach of the NHS, the government must be prepared to override patents and support the production of medicines domestically. Where the public has contributed to drug development, the case for strict pricing conditions is even stronger.
Tim Bierley
Pharmaceuticals Campaign Manager, Global Justice Now