Four drugs not recommended for routine NHS use due to their cost

Drugs used to treat two rare cancers have been turned down for routine use by the NHS in Scotland.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) advised against the drugs being used after ruling the cost outweighed the benefits.

The decision comes despite the organisation being allowed more flexibility as the drugs are used to treat very rare and endof-life conditions.

One of the drugs, nivolumab,wasnotrecom- mendedasaroutinetreatment for advanced bladder cancer. However, it was approved by the SMC in July for use on the NHS in Scotland to treat Hodgkin lymphoma – a cancer of the white blood cells.

The consortium rejected the use of obinutuzumab as another option for patients with previously untreated blood cancer follicular lymphoma.

Two other drugs – arbetocin, used to reduce the risk of bleeding in mothers following a Caesarean section, and eluxadoline, which treats irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhoea – were also not recommended for routine use by NHS Scotland on cost-tobenefit grounds.

SMC chairman Alan Macdonald said: “Although we were able to apply additional flexibility in our decisionmaking for two of these medicines, nivolumab and obinutuzumab, the committee needs to consider all the evidence presented.

“As the evidence of benefits in relation to cost for these medicines was lacking, they were not considered to be a good use of NHS resources.

“We know these decisions will be hard for patient groups and clinicians.”