SMC must be ‘more flexible’ – health minister
pharmafile | October 9, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing | CDF, NICE, SMC
The Scottish health secretary Alex Neil has announced a series of fundamental changes to improve access to new medicines in the country.
The changes include revising the criteria the Scottish Medicines Council (SMC) uses to decide if new drugs for treating rare conditions or extending life are value for money.
The Individual Patient Treatment Requests (IPTR) system patients currently use to apply for medicines blocked by SMC will also be scrapped, and replaced with one led by medical consultants.
But there appear to be no plans to introduce a Cancer Drugs Fund as there is in England, to inject more money into NHS Scotland to fund new cancer drugs rejected by the SMC.
The CDF in England has just been extended by two years and given an extra £400 million funding guarantee from the government.
But Neil said that an ‘extended a special fund’ would be introduced to pay for new medicines until 2016. He also created a new approval system for doctors who want to prescribe drugs which are not routinely available.
It has in addition been decided that the SMC must also become more transparent, opening its meetings to the public and enabling patients to share their views.
The overhaul follows years of concern that access to new medicines in Scotland was falling behind other countries – especially England – which culminated in an inquiry by the health and sport committee of the Scottish Parliament last year.
Doctors from across the Scotland gave evidence to MSPs describing the situation as a ‘tragedy’ which was not only affecting the sick, but also risking Scotland’s reputation as a centre of excellence for cancer care.
Neil said he thought the new system would save lives but denied the old regime was ‘failing patients’. He added: “We are world leaders in this area and these changes we are making will make further improvements and will make the system even more world-renowned.”
He went on: “It is only right that Scottish patients have access to medicines that are clinically justified. We have listened carefully to patients, charities and consultants and put in place a comprehensive range of measures which will increase access to new medicines and make the system better and more open for patients.”
Mark Flannagan, chief executive of Beating Bowel Cancer, said: “We welcome the government’s announcement that it is to take decisive action to improve access to new drugs and treatments for Scottish patients.
“In particular, that it has listened to our concerns that the current system is failing patients. The death of the IPTR should lift the barriers to doctors wanting to prescribe the latest cancer drugs they believe will benefit their patients.”
Rejections
This comes in the same week that the SMC said it would not recommend NHS Scotland funding for Roche’s new breast cancer drug Perjeta, due to its high cost.
Breakthrough Breast Cancer said it hoped treatments like Perjeta would be approved under the new regime. James Jopling, Scotland director at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: “At present women with secondary breast cancer have limited treatment options for what is an incurable form of the disease.”
NICE has also rejected the drug for funding in England, again citing its high cost and uncertainties over its survival benefits.
But on the same day as it rejected Perjeta, the SMC became the only HTA body in the UK to approve Pfizer’s lung cancer drug Xalkori for NHS funding.
Ben Adams
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