Pioneering drugs will be fast-tracked, promises Hunt

LIFE-SAVING drugs and medical innovations will be brought to the NHS up to four years sooner, under fast-track plans announced today.

Jeremy Hunt pledged “dramatic improvements” in the time taken for breakthroughs to get from the lab to patients, vowing that “the country of Watson and Crick” should play a global role in scientific discovery.

Treatments identified by experts as having the greatest potential to change lives will be given extra support, and a faster drug approval route. Mr Hunt said action was needed to tackle Britain’s slow record at getting breakthroughs in diseases such as cancer to those who could benefit.

Sir Andrew Witty, former Glaxosmithkline chief executive, will lead the panel, with £86 million invested in speeding up access to new treatments.

Writing for Telegraph.co.uk, Mr Hunt said: “Too often, despite the innovation happening here in the UK, our uptake in the NHS and the process of getting new innovations and treatments to patients is too slow.” The measures would “dramatically improve how quickly and easily we can get innovative products from the laboratory bench to the patient’s bedside” speeding up NHS access by up to four years.

Regulators and some scientists have raised fears that Brexit could slow access to new medicines. However, the Health Secretary said the measures showed the Government was “backing to the hilt the areas we know are core strengths for the British economy”.

“The country of Newton, Darwin, Watson and Crick is determined to continue turning heads all over the world with British inventiveness and openness to innovation,” he added.