Patients get right to test life-saving drugs

A NEW national database to allow seriously ill patients to volunteer for innovative treatments and accelerate the development of life-saving drugs is to be given official approval,

can disclose. The Government is supporting backbench legislation to allow doctors and patients to access a database containing details of all new medicines in development and allow them to volunteer.

Ministers are hoping that allowing so many potential patients to volunteer will improve the evidence base around new drugs and cut the time it takes to bring them to market by five years. The Access to Medical Treatments (Innovation) Bill is likely to be nicknamed the “son of Saatchi Bill” because it is a watered down version of previous legislation developed by the advertising magnate Lord Saatchi.

Crucially, it will drop any attempt to allow doctors to experiment on patients without fear of being sued – a measure in the Saatchi Bill which led to it being branded a “Quack’s charter”.

The Bill has been brought forward by the Conservative MP Chris Heaton-Harris and George Freeman, the life sciences minister.

The Government’s decision to give the legislation the support of civil servants and parliamentary time means that it is likely to be law by the summer.