NICE to lose its power to ban life saving drugs

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDNov 1 2010

Ministers have finally clarified that patients would not be denied life-extending drugs just because the NHS rationing body decides they are too expensive. National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) the drug watchdog in the UK will be stripped of its powers to stop drugs being available on the NHS due to price. The arbitrary limit on the cost of new drugs – around £30,000 per year of extended high-quality life – will be scrapped from 2014.

This will be good news for tens of thousands of patients currently being denied life-extending drugs every year, even though their clinician believes these drugs could help them. Also the term “cost effective” would not be the obstacle in their treatment.

Critics mentioned that the NICE’s “penny pinching” strategy could be one of the reasons behind UK’s appalling record on cancer survival, which sees patients denied innovative new drugs that are available freely in Europe. For example NICE originally turned down the breast cancer drug Herceptin, blindness drugs Macugen and Lucentis, and three drugs for dementia sufferers costing just £2.50 a day, only backing down after high-profile campaigns. Cancer charities say 20,000 patients die early needlessly every year because of NICE decisions.

From now on NICE would no longer be ‘acting as an arbiter on the availability of drugs’, with GPs instead deciding what the NHS could afford says the Department of Health. Health Minister Earl Howe had said last week that NICE was becoming ‘somewhat redundant’ when a new method of paying for drugs comes on stream in 2014.

Clive Stone, of Justice for Kidney Cancer Patients, described the news as ‘excellent’. He added, “It has taken me by complete surprise, especially after all our battles for access to cancer drugs. Has David beaten Goliath?”

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said, “We will move to an NHS where patients will be confident that where their clinicians believe a particular drug is the right and most effective one for them, then the NHS will be able to provide it for them.”

Health economist Alan Maynard however added a word, “Real growth in the NHS will be about 0.5 per cent in the next few years. We’re going to have rationing…The question is whether we have it at a national level or let 150 primary care trusts or whatever do it their own way.”

Sir Andrew Dillon, chief executive of NICE, said in his statement, “NICE is the global leader in evaluating the benefits of new drugs and we anticipate being at the heart of the new arrangements.”