Posted by Michael Wonder on 21 Feb 2019
Linking cancer drug prices to treatment success could speed up approvals. But what do patients consider success?
21 February 2019 - The NHS spends more than £2 billion on cancer drugs each year in the UK. And with NHS budgets stretched, it’s critical these drugs offer value for money.
NICE and the SMC, which decide whether a new drug is cost-effective for the NHS, have well-established ways to ensure this. But new challenges and new opportunities are always emerging, prompting the NHS to consider how to spend its money most effectively.
Clinical trials remain vital to ensure a drug is safe and effective. But with decisions on whether to make new drugs available being made sooner after their development, those trials give a less complete picture of a drug’s benefits. And at the same time, the NHS is collecting more data than ever before on how well patients respond to new drugs outside of clinical trials, after they’ve been introduced into the NHS.
We asked people affected by cancer what they value most in their treatment as part of a new report. And it’s clear the NHS has a chance to use the data it collects to make sure it’s paying for the things that matter most to patients.
