ABPI Chief Executive, Stephen Whitehead, comments on the announcement by the Shadow Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham MP, that Labour will create a Cancer Treatment Fund to pay for innovative cancer drugs, surgery and radiotherapy in April 2016, when the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) expires.

Stephen Whitehead said: “The ABPI welcomes the Shadow Secretary of State’s recognition of the poor availability of new and exciting medicines for patients in the UK. Cancer medicines in particular lagged behind and the CDF was introduced to enable patients to have access to cancer medicines that are routinely available in other EU countries. The fund has gone some of the way to address this although the UK still lags behind Germany, France and Italy as regards the access to medicines for patients in need. This is despite the fact that the price of branded medicines in the UK is still amongst the lowest in Europe.

“To ensure that all patients get access to the best new medicines we are calling for reform of NICE to enable it to look at new medicines with greater flexibility whilst also balancing the affordability issue. The long term sustainable solution is of course to utilise the expertise of NICE in partnership with NHS England to address this challenge.

For more details, go to: http://www.abpi.org.uk/media-centre/newsreleases/2014/Pages/091214.aspx