1,300 women to get breakthrough breast cancer drug on the NHS
A BREAKTHROUGH breast cancer drug is due to be provided routinely for the first time, after the NHS chief executive stepped in to broker a deal.
More than 1,300 women with advanced cancer are expected to get the Perjeta treatment on the NHS.
The treatment – for the aggressive HER2+ form of the disease – extends life for women dying with breast cancer by an average 56 months, 16 months more than the next best treatment.
Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, yesterday announced he had negotiated a confidential commercial agreement with drugs giant Roche.
The deal paves the way for the drug to receive final approval from NICE process – expected to be finalised by the end of the month.
Perjeta was previously temporarily available on the Cancer Drugs Fund and had the highest ‘clinical impact’ score of any drug in the scheme.
But, despite its accepted benefits, it was due to be scrapped by NICE and taken off the fund due to its massive cost – £87,000 per patient for two years.
Roche and NICE have been locked in negotiations since 2013 over the drug – and had suspended talks because the company said it simply could not make it cheap enough to be classed as acceptable under the NICE rulebook.
Mr Stevens has tackled that problem by insisting NHS England should be able to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies offering innovative high value medicines. Announcing the deal at the FT Global Pharmaceu- tical and Biotechnology Conference in London yesterday, he said: ‘For companies who are willing to work with us, there are real gains for them, for the NHS and most importantly for patients able to get new and innovative drugs.’
The details of the deal were kept confidential, but is likely to have
‘Impact cannot be underestimated’
involved providing discounts to Roche’s other products, a kind of arrangement impossible for NICE itself to negotiate. Mr Stevens also announced a deal with drugs firm Merck to provide its multiple sclerosis drug Mavenclad.
Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive at Breast Cancer Now, said: ‘This is exceptionally good news. The impact that this treatment has had, and will hopefully now continue to have on the NHS, for thousands of women living with incurable metastatic breast cancer and their loved ones cannot be underestimated.
‘Perjeta is an indispensable and life-changing drug, offering women with incurable breast cancer nearly 16 extra months to live compared to other treatments.
‘This step shows quite clearly that robust deal- making is possible and can achieve real value for money for the NHS and the taxpayer.’
Liz Hims, 69, has been taking Perjeta for four years, having been invited to take part in a clinical trial after she was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in 2013.
The retired primary school headteacher from Hertfordshire said: ‘It is fantastic news, really fantastic. I am as well as I have ever been – I swim, I cycle, I look after my grandchildren.
‘Twice a year we are able to fly to America to see our son and our grandchildren – I have a lovely life.
‘Every three weeks I go to hospital to have my treatment and I feel a little bit tired – but that is probably as much to do with driving around the M25 as the treatment.
Mrs Hims added: ‘I have been very fortunate and this agreement will make such a difference to other people’s lives.’