Post by Deanne Jenkyns on Sept 10, 2007 14:40:27 GMT 1
Act now to end this appalling injustice
PRESSURE was mounting on health chiefs last night to reverse their decision to deny a dying woman life-extending drugs after Britain's foremost kidney cancer specialist stepped into the row.
Professor Tim Eisen, of Cambrdige University, who is also medical advisor to charity Kidney Cancer UK, launched an outspoken attack on the "postcode lottery" of NHS cancer care, which means many patients are denied life-giving drugs because they live in the wrong place.
He said the present situation was "terrible for doctors and even more terrible for patients".
His intervention increases the pressure on the North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust (PCT), which is refusing to fund Sutent, which costs £23,000 a year, for patient Barbara Selby.
The drug is already widely available in Europe and the US and, earlier this week, the North-East and Cumbria Cancer Drug Approvals Group approved it for patients in northern England.
But because Mrs Selby lives in Richmond, which is seven miles on the wrong side of the North-East/North Yorkshire border, she will not benefit from the move.
Prof Eisen criticised the length of time taken to assess new drugs for the NHS and warned that Britain risked falling behind the rest of Western Europe unless the Government was willing to fund new and sometimes costly drugs such as Sutent and a similar drug called Nexavar.
Both drugs work by stopping the blood supply to cancer cells.
"The situation is very frustrating for doctors and extremely distressing for patients," Prof Eisen said.
He made his comments after The Northern Echo highlighted Mrs Selby's plight.
Mrs Selby made an application for funding to her local PCT some weeks ago, but has had no response.
Prof Eisen was involved in some of the largest clinical trials of Nexavar at London's Royal Marsden Hospital a few years ago.
Experts say that life expectancy for patients with advanced kidney cancer is between a year and 18 months after diagnosis.
But some of the patients on the London Nexavar trial are still alive five years later.
There are similar cases of patients on Sutent trials who have also survived much longer than expected.
Prof Eisen said the evidence about the medical effectiveness of Sutent and Nexavar - which cost roughly the same - was overwhelming.
"I don't think there is any doubt that drugs like Nexavar and Sutent represent a genuine breakthrough in the treatment of kidney cancer.
"What is unique is that these are the only kidney cancer drugs which work in large majorities of patients," he added.
While in many cases the drugs would only prolong patients' lives by a matter of months "some patients do last a great deal longer," he said.
"The published evidence about these drugs seems to be good enough for every other advanced country. It makes you wonder why we are applying a different standard," he added.
Prof Eisen described the breakthrough in the North-East as "a victory for the people in your area" but expressed concern that most other patients were unable to get Sutent or Nexevar on the NHS.
He criticised the independent drugs watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or Nice, for being "slow and extremely unfair."
The professor of medical oncology, who works at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, said he hoped that the North-East decision would be a turning point.
A spokeswoman for Nice said since the watchdog was set up in 1999 there was a much wider availability of new drugs within the NHS.
She added that the Nice appraisal process was largely driven by committees of independent experts.
While admitting the process took a long time, she argued that the result was high quality advice.
In a cash-limited system it was impossible to approve high-cost drugs without checking cost-effectiveness, she added.
A spokesman for North Yorkshire and York PCT was sticking to the official line last night.
He repeated the PCT's justification for denying Mrs Selby the treatment: "In March 2007 the PCT's High Cost Treatments Board recommended that Nexavar, like Sutent, should not be routinely funded by the PCT. This decision is in line with the Scottish Medicines Consortium and the Yorkshire Cancer Network.
"The conclusion was that the justification provided by the drug company of the treatment's cost in relation to the health benefits for patients was not sufficient to gain support."
Experts say life expectancy for patients with advanced kidney cancer is 12 to 18 months after diagnosis. But some patients on Nexavar trials are still alive five years later, and there are cases of Sutent trial patients who have survived a long time.
Prof Eisen said the evidence about the effectiveness of the drugs, which cost about the same, was overwhelming.
He said: "These are the only kidney cancer drugs which work in large majorities of patients."
He said: "The published evidence about these drugs seems to be good enough for every other advanced country.
"It makes you wonder why we are applying a different standard."
Prof Eisen described the breakthrough in the North-East as a victory for the area, but expressed concern that most other patients were unable to get Sutent or Nexavar on the NHS.
He criticised the independent drugs watchdog the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) for being "slow and extremely unfair".
The professor of medical oncology, who works at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, said he hoped the North-East decision would be a turning point.
A spokeswoman for Nice said that since the watchdog was set up in 1999, there was a much wider availability of new drugs in the NHS.
She said the Nice appraisal process was largely led by independent experts.
While she said the process took a long time, she added that the result was high-quality advice, and that it was impossible to approve high-cost drugs without checking cost-effectiveness.
A North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust spokesman said the trust had decided the cost of Nexavar outweighed the benefits.
PRESSURE was mounting on health chiefs last night to reverse their decision to deny a dying woman life-extending drugs after Britain's foremost kidney cancer specialist stepped into the row.
Professor Tim Eisen, of Cambrdige University, who is also medical advisor to charity Kidney Cancer UK, launched an outspoken attack on the "postcode lottery" of NHS cancer care, which means many patients are denied life-giving drugs because they live in the wrong place.
He said the present situation was "terrible for doctors and even more terrible for patients".
His intervention increases the pressure on the North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust (PCT), which is refusing to fund Sutent, which costs £23,000 a year, for patient Barbara Selby.
The drug is already widely available in Europe and the US and, earlier this week, the North-East and Cumbria Cancer Drug Approvals Group approved it for patients in northern England.
But because Mrs Selby lives in Richmond, which is seven miles on the wrong side of the North-East/North Yorkshire border, she will not benefit from the move.
Prof Eisen criticised the length of time taken to assess new drugs for the NHS and warned that Britain risked falling behind the rest of Western Europe unless the Government was willing to fund new and sometimes costly drugs such as Sutent and a similar drug called Nexavar.
Both drugs work by stopping the blood supply to cancer cells.
"The situation is very frustrating for doctors and extremely distressing for patients," Prof Eisen said.
He made his comments after The Northern Echo highlighted Mrs Selby's plight.
Mrs Selby made an application for funding to her local PCT some weeks ago, but has had no response.
Prof Eisen was involved in some of the largest clinical trials of Nexavar at London's Royal Marsden Hospital a few years ago.
Experts say that life expectancy for patients with advanced kidney cancer is between a year and 18 months after diagnosis.
But some of the patients on the London Nexavar trial are still alive five years later.
There are similar cases of patients on Sutent trials who have also survived much longer than expected.
Prof Eisen said the evidence about the medical effectiveness of Sutent and Nexavar - which cost roughly the same - was overwhelming.
"I don't think there is any doubt that drugs like Nexavar and Sutent represent a genuine breakthrough in the treatment of kidney cancer.
"What is unique is that these are the only kidney cancer drugs which work in large majorities of patients," he added.
While in many cases the drugs would only prolong patients' lives by a matter of months "some patients do last a great deal longer," he said.
"The published evidence about these drugs seems to be good enough for every other advanced country. It makes you wonder why we are applying a different standard," he added.
Prof Eisen described the breakthrough in the North-East as "a victory for the people in your area" but expressed concern that most other patients were unable to get Sutent or Nexevar on the NHS.
He criticised the independent drugs watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, or Nice, for being "slow and extremely unfair."
The professor of medical oncology, who works at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, said he hoped that the North-East decision would be a turning point.
A spokeswoman for Nice said since the watchdog was set up in 1999 there was a much wider availability of new drugs within the NHS.
She added that the Nice appraisal process was largely driven by committees of independent experts.
While admitting the process took a long time, she argued that the result was high quality advice.
In a cash-limited system it was impossible to approve high-cost drugs without checking cost-effectiveness, she added.
A spokesman for North Yorkshire and York PCT was sticking to the official line last night.
He repeated the PCT's justification for denying Mrs Selby the treatment: "In March 2007 the PCT's High Cost Treatments Board recommended that Nexavar, like Sutent, should not be routinely funded by the PCT. This decision is in line with the Scottish Medicines Consortium and the Yorkshire Cancer Network.
"The conclusion was that the justification provided by the drug company of the treatment's cost in relation to the health benefits for patients was not sufficient to gain support."
Experts say life expectancy for patients with advanced kidney cancer is 12 to 18 months after diagnosis. But some patients on Nexavar trials are still alive five years later, and there are cases of Sutent trial patients who have survived a long time.
Prof Eisen said the evidence about the effectiveness of the drugs, which cost about the same, was overwhelming.
He said: "These are the only kidney cancer drugs which work in large majorities of patients."
He said: "The published evidence about these drugs seems to be good enough for every other advanced country.
"It makes you wonder why we are applying a different standard."
Prof Eisen described the breakthrough in the North-East as a victory for the area, but expressed concern that most other patients were unable to get Sutent or Nexavar on the NHS.
He criticised the independent drugs watchdog the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) for being "slow and extremely unfair".
The professor of medical oncology, who works at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, said he hoped the North-East decision would be a turning point.
A spokeswoman for Nice said that since the watchdog was set up in 1999, there was a much wider availability of new drugs in the NHS.
She said the Nice appraisal process was largely led by independent experts.
While she said the process took a long time, she added that the result was high-quality advice, and that it was impossible to approve high-cost drugs without checking cost-effectiveness.
A North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust spokesman said the trust had decided the cost of Nexavar outweighed the benefits.
LC charity Ball
