Breast cancer drug blocked in England ... but not Scotland

THOUSANDS of women with incurable breast cancer are potentially being robbed of precious time with loved ones after being denied a lifeextending drug.

In what has been described as a ‘dark day’ for patients, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence watchdog ruled that Enhertu is not costeffective on the NHS.

Charities and patients were in ‘absolute shock’ at the decision yesterday. The drug has been approved by Scottish regulators.

Trials found Enhertu boosted the time the cancer was held at bay from seven months to more than two years. It is available in 13 other European countries, as well as the US and Canada.

Last night a petition by charity Breast Cancer Now against the decision had reached more than 6,000 signatures.

Charity chief executive Baroness Delyth Morgan said: ‘This is a dark day. This means that thousands of mums, daughters, sisters and wives face knowing a treatment that could have been a lifeline for them exists, but remains out of reach.’

Enhertu is the trade name of trastuzumab deruxtecan, the first licensed targeted treatment for patients with a type of cancer that cannot be removed surgically or that has spread.

Around 1,000 women each year in England could benefit from the drug. It is understood the NHS

would have secured the drug for significantly less than the monthly £10,000 cost per patient in the US, but Helen Knight, director of medicines evaluation at Nice, said: ‘ The cost the NHS was being asked to pay was

too high in relation to the benefits it provides.’

Almost 1,500 women at very high risk of breast cancer have missed annual check-ups because of an NHS blunder. They were given radiotherapy to treat Hodgkins

lymphoma between 1962 and 2003 which raises their risk of cancer and they should have been invited for screening. But NHS England admitted a ‘failure’ in the referral process and they are only now being contacted.