Cancer drug refusal not very NICE

The not very nice men (and women) at NICE have refused two more cancer drugs for English cancer patients. The two drugs, Avastin and Erbitux, have extended the life expectancy of bowel cancer sufferers by 4-5 months and is a similar drug to Herceptin which NICE also refused for breast cancer sufferers in England. Bowel cancer kills almost 50 people per day and is the second worst killer cancer next to breast cancer.

As if it wasn't bad enough for English bowel cancer patients to be refused what has been described as the best option for seriously ill patients whose cancer has spread, the press release by the charity Beating Bowel Cancer and subsequent reporting in the press and media must have been a real kick in the teeth. Beating Bowel Cancer complains in their press release that we are the only country in the EU who don't offer this drug, saying "The decision by NICE not to make these drugs routinely available on the NHS to appropriate patients is a scandal and we strongly urge NICE to reconsider its decision. We are now the only nation in the EU not to offer Avastin and Erbitux to bowel cancer patients in the disease’s advanced stages. Why should patients in the UK be worse off than patients in the rest of Europe?"

NICE decisions apply only to England, not the UK. The drug is approved in Scotland and Wales, it is only in England that the drug is refused despite the fact that it is the English taxpayer subisidising the rest of the UK that allows these expensive drugs to be prescribed there in the first place.

Hat-tip: Waking Hereward