Cancer drug delay ‘costing lives’

Sep 27 2007 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

A LEADING Liverpool charity last night claimed a delay in the decision to provide a lung cancer drug on the NHS is costing lives.

NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) has failed to decide the result of an appeal held in June, which contested their recommendation that the drug Tarceva should not be prescribed on the national health.

The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, which was part of a panel that met with NICE on June 6 to appeal, criticised the delay at its annual conference yesterday.

At the appeal hearing, the committee pledged to report back within three weeks but lung cancer patients are still waiting for a decision three months later.

Tarceva is the brand name for erlotinib, a drug used to treat patients with non-small cell lung cancer, which accounts for three quarters of all lung cancers.

In June 2006, the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) passed the drug for use in Scotland but it is only available in England and Wales in exceptional circumstances or as part of a clinical trial.

Mike Unger, chief executive for The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, condemned the hold up and said the government had “turned its back on lung cancer patients.”

He said: “According to their website, NICE is “an independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on promoting good health and preventing and treating ill health.”

“However, two years after Tarceva received its UK license, lung cancer patients in England and Wales are not gaining access to innovative oral treatment.

“NICE is turning its back on its duty.”

A spokesman for NICE told the Daily Post an appeal outcome will be known next week. In the meantime there is no ban on PCTs prescribing the drug.

He said: “NICE and its independent committees have the responsibility to take account of both clinical and cost effectiveness when recommending treatments to the NHS.

“It does so because, in a service with finite resources, the use of treatments which offer marginal benefit at significant cost in one area will lead to loss or restriction of effective interventions of greater value in another.

“It is rare for our advisory committee not to recommend anti-cancer treatments: for most anti-cancer drugs, based on the evidence available to it, it does find sufficient value in the treatment and makes a recommendation for wider use.”

Mr Unger added: “The Government has under estimated cost implications of alternative lung cancer treatments so can no longer use expense as an excuse.

“Time is a luxury lung cancer patients don't have. Put simply, the Government has turned its back on lung cancer patients.”

lizawilliams