LONDON, Oct 16 (APM) - England’s cancer drugs fund should be scrapped and potentially replaced by a system under which the National Health Service pays more for these drugs after cost-effectiveness assessments, the chief executive of NICE, Andrew Dillon said in a newspaper interview on Thursday.
In England, the 280 million pound (350 million euros) per year fund covers the cost of many cancer drugs rejected by NICE. Dillon has previously indicated he sees the cancer drugs fund as a potential barrier to reform of NICE's processes in oncology. (APMMA 39728)
Dillon said in an interview with The Times, that “nobody thinks that (the present system is) working” because there was no alignment with the cancer drug fund’s decisions and those of NICE.
He argued the NHS should pay a "premium price" for cancer drugs if the government chooses to prioritise the disease.
“The logical thing to do is to say that either we don’t have a cancer drugs fund any more and cancer is simply regarded in the same way as other diseases and conditions, or cancer is going to be regarded as a special case and that there’s a different willingness to pay on the part of the NHS.”
Dillon’s comments came in several in-depth articles in The Times about provision of cancer drugs in the UK and whether it is right that such treatments should get priority over other diseases.
According to Dillon the cancer drugs fund “took the lid off” its value-for-money assessments, the paper says.
Dillon said in the interview that he had no proof that pharma companies are pushing up the price of cancer drugs - but he argued that when considering what discount, if any, to offer the NHS “(the fund) has to be in companies’ minds.”
While he sympathised with those denied treatments because of NICE’s decisions, he stressed the body needed to think of the wider public interest.
“The fact is the NHS has a limited amount of money so if we choose to spend this money on something completely new we’re not going to be able to benefit another group of patients.”
NICE in August said it was "disappointed" with Roche's decision to price breast cancer drug Kadcyla (trastuzumab emtansine) beyond the NHS' means (APMMA 39351).
The medical director of NHS England, Bruce Keogh, shared Dillon’s concerns about the arrangements for cancer drugs.
He said: “On the one hand we are trying to develop an NHS which is based on evidence and NICE is a shining example of that.
“On the other, we’ve got a bunch of patients who feel they need a drug to prolong their life for a short period of time … and feel that they weren’t getting access to certain drugs for financial reasons.
“We need to get (the cancer drugs fund) integrated into the NICE system.”
The charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer argued that the fund was necessary in the short term to improve access to drugs, the paper reported.
But the cancer charity Maggie’s argued the fund should stop and the Alzheimer’s Society raised concerns about costs for care of those with dementia, two thirds of which have to be paid for by carers and their families.
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said that before the fund was set up in 2010, cancer patients had difficulties accessing the latest drugs. “I am happy with the structure we have,” he told the paper.
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