Posted by Michael Wonder on 20 Dec 2017
'Drugs are too expensive for the NHS – and people are paying with their lives’
20 December 2017 - Don’t blame the NHS for denying vital medication, say members of a new activist group, Just Treatment. Blame the pharma companies hooked on huge profits.
Arms aloft, activist and breast cancer patient Emma Robertson emerged from the UK headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer last month wearing a bright blue T-shirt. Emblazoned on the back in bold yellow letters were the words: “No drug should ever cost a life”.
Thirty minutes earlier she had snatched a pen from my hands. “I can’t believe I nearly forgot to sign my own petition,” she exclaimed, hastily adding her name to close on 20,000 others demanding that Pfizer drop the price of a breakthrough breast cancer treatment which around 5,500 NHS patients had been denied. In February, the drug palbociclib had been rejected by NICE for use on the NHS in England due to its hefty price tag, estimated at around £140 a pill.
