8 September 2015 - Roche Holding AG Chief Executive Officer Severin Schwan blasted a U.K. decision to stop funding some cancer drugs, including the company’s blockbuster Avastin, calling the choice “stupid” because it focuses on the price of medicines rather than potential savings to the health system.

The U.K.’s National Health Service said Sept. 4 that the Cancer Drug Fund set up by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2011 would no longer pay for treatment with Avastin, Roche’s second-best-selling product, for cervical, breast and colorectal cancer. The ruling also affects a Roche breast cancer medicine called Kadcyla.

“It’s completely arbitrary,” Schwan said at a briefing Tuesday with reporters in Basel, Switzerland. “This is a mess and it needs to be fixed quickly.”

For more details, go to: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-08/roche-ceo-slams-stupid-u-k-decision-to-drop-some-cancer-drugs