by Richard Staines
LONDON, Dec 15 (APM) - A panel of experts in charge of National Health Service (NHS) England's cancer drugs fund on Monday met to decide which drugs will no longer be paid for - amid protests from politicians and patient groups.
The review of 25 drugs follows a decision last month by NHS England (APMMA 40428) to introduce cost-effectiveness tests for drugs on the fund, set up to pay for cancer medicines rejected by NICE.
But the move has sparked anger amongst politicians and patient groups, who have called for a wider debate about provision of cancer drugs in England.
A spokeswoman for NHS England told APM that the outcome of the review will be published in the new year, but gave no indication about which drugs will stay on the fund, worth 560 million pounds (704 million euros) until 2016, and which will be removed.
Eric Ollerenshaw MP, and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Pancreatic Cancer, told APM he and other politicians are calling for a debate in parliament on the issue in the new year.
Ollerenshaw, conservative MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood, told APM in a telephone interview he had particular concerns about Celgene's Abraxane (nab-paclitaxel), rejected by NICE in pancreatic cancer in September but available since its approval earlier this year via the cancer drugs fund.
Although there is no information available yet about whether Abraxane will be axed, Ollerenshaw and other campaigners moved preemptively to make the case that funding for the drug should be continued.
He told APM it would be “crazy” to add the drug to the list in spring, yet remove it less than a year later.
He said: “Abraxane is the first new pancreatic drug that we have seen for the last 20 years.”
Ollerenshaw said he was disappointed that since its inception, the fund had been unable to provide "real world" data that could have been fed back to NICE, so that cost-effectiveness decisions could be reviewed.
“It was my understanding that CDF would provide data that would be sent back to NICE, then they would be able to approve them. But it does not seem to work like that.”
Celgene estimates that Abraxane costs on average around 1,400 pounds (1,800 euros) per month, according to information provided by NICE at the time it rejected the drug in September.
Ollerenshaw added that breast cancer campaigners are also concerned about the impact of the review on breast cancer drugs.
At the moment the fund pays for Roche's Kadcyla (trastuzumab emtansine) and Perjeta (pertuzumab), among others.
He added that he and other campaigners are trying to secure a debate in parliament about cancer drugs in the new year.
Local press reported that Iain Stewart, conservative MP for Milton Keynes South, delivered a petition to 10 Downing Street, alongside the charity Pancreatic Cancer UK, and patients and families affected by the disease calling for Abraxane to remain funded.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer, in a statement called for a long-term solution to the problem of funding expensive cancer drugs on the NHS.
The spokesperson said: “The cancer drugs fund was only ever intended to be a temporary solution, acting as a safety net for patients, but we are now facing a situation in which it may fail to perform that function for some people and more and more life-extending drugs could be snatched away from those that need them.
“That’s why we are calling upon all political parties to commit within their manifestos to finding a long-term, UK wide solution to the ongoing problem of access to life-extending drugs by the end of the next parliament, working with the pharmaceutical industry and key stakeholders to develop and embed a new system of drug pricing and evaluation."
rs/hlc
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