7 May 2018 - The Scottish Medicines Consortium, which advises on newly licensed medicines for use by NHSScotland, has today published advice accepting five medicines. 

Four of these medicines were accepted through SMC’s Patient and Clinician Engagement process, which is used to consider medicines used to treat end of life and very rare conditions.

Nusinersen (Spinraza) was accepted for the treatment of infantile onset 5q spinal muscular atrophy (type 1 SMA). The committee was unable to recommend nusinersen for the treatment of type 2 and 3 SMA.

Avelumab (Bavencio) was accepted for the treatment of Merkel cell carcinoma, an aggressive, rare form of skin cancer.

Read SMC press release