Doubts cast on new Cancer Drugs Fund
pharmafile | April 1, 2011 | News story | | Cancer Drugs Fund, value-based pricing
There are stark regional variations in the number of doctors using the government’s provisional Cancer Drugs Fund, according to a new report.
The findings come on the day the full version of the Cancer Drugs Fund is launched, promising an extra £200 million in drug funding each year for the next three years.
The survey, undertaken by Swiss pharma company Roche, looked at four regions across the south of England between October and March.
In the worst example Roche found that the south east Strategic Health Authority was spending only 10% of its £3.9 million allocation and had 20-30% of its applications rejected.
The report also found many clinicians were put off from applying to the interim £50 million Fund, citing reasons such as a drug being excluded from recommended lists and the process being too complicated.
Across the south of England, half of all clinicians who wanted to use the Fund have been unable to do so and 27% found the process too cumbersome to apply.
But Health secretary Andrew Lansley said the interim Fund had helped over 2,000 cancer patients across England and he was confident the £600 million Cancer Drugs Fund would continue to deliver over the next three years.
Mike Hobday, head of policy at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “Although a large number of cancer patients have received life extending treatment because of the interim Fund in England, we know that there is sadly considerable variation in the way that it has been administered between regions.
“To prevent a postcode lottery the government could develop best practice advice to complement national guidance, and ensure this knowledge is shared between different regions to prevent this happening with the full funding.”
The government is using the Fund as a short-term measure to improve access to medicines ahead of the introduction of value-based pricing (VBP) in 2014.
VBP is a new system that uses the value of a drug to assess its price and the government believes cancer drugs will among the medicines that will benefit from this new approach.
The Fund is a last resort for cancer patients and aims at providing access to licensed oncology drugs that have not been approved by cost-effectiveness body NICE and have been further denied exceptional funding by a health authority.
Roche has been one of the biggest losers of NICE’s recent cancer drug decisions, with its blockbuster treatment Avastin repeatedly failing to be recommended for use on the NHS.
Fellow pharma company GlaxoSmithKline was more upbeat about the Fund, saying today’s launch was a “hugely important step forward” for the 1.8 million people in England who are currently living with cancer.
GSK hopes its breast cancer drug Tyverb (lapatinib) and leukemia treatment Arzerra (ofatumumab) would be beneficiaries of the new Fund.
Both drugs are currently not recommended by NICE, but the Institute is still assessing whether Tyverb could be used off-label use alongside Roche’s Herceptin.
Ben Adams
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