Thousands of life-extending drugs could be denied to patients under new guidelines
Thousands of life-extending drugs could be denied to patients under new guidelines that do not always classify terminal cancer as ‘serious’, drug bosses have warned.
A recent decision by watchdog the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) to block the breast cancer miracle drug Enhertu is just the ‘tip of the iceberg’.
Leading pharmaceutical companies say there are around 2,000 new cancer drugs in the pipeline, but warned that changes to the way they are assessed by regulators mean many will be rejected for use by the NHS.
Haran Maheson, from manufacturer Daiichi Sankyo UK, which developed Enhertu, said: ‘In many ways, trastuzumab deruxtecan – or Enhertu – is just the tip of the iceberg.
‘This goes far beyond the individual pipeline of one company for one particular product. It is a sector-wide issue.’
Thousands of life-extending drugs could be denied to patients under new guidelines, drug bosses have warned (stock image)
Breast cancer miracle drug Enhertu is administered as an intravenous (IV) infusion (stock image)
Nice has introduced new guidelines to determine the cost-effectiveness of medicines for use in the NHS in 2021 following a review.
While previous criteria focused on cancer treatment at the end of life, a new measure – known as a ‘severity modifier rating’ – was introduced to give more equal weighting to all serious diseases.
It led to Enhertu being rejected earlier this year due to costs, which effectively meant that metastatic breast cancer – which spreads with a short life expectancy – was downgraded from a high- to medium-severity disease.
Trials of the drug showed it extended the time the cancer was controlled from seven months to more than two years – results experts called ‘mind-boggling’.
The drug is available in Scotland and 13 other European countries, the US and Canada.
Baroness Delyth Morgan of Breast Cancer Now, who has appealed the decision to block Enhertu, warned: ‘For some women this will mean losing their lives.’
Dr. Sam Roberts, Nice’s chief executive, said it was “a regrettable matter that we hope to resolve.”