12 October 2015 - The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), which reviews newly licensed medicines, has today (Monday 12 October) published advice accepting six new medicines for routine use by NHS Scotland.

Four of these medicines, trastuzumab (Herceptin) for stomach cancer, radium 223 (Xofigo) and abiraterone (Zytiga) for prostate cancer, and nintedanib (Ofev) for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (a long term disease of the lungs) were accepted after consideration under the SMC’s PACE (Patient and Clinician Engagement) process, which aims to improve patient access to new medicines for the treatment of end of life and very rare conditions.

The Committee was unable to recommend everolimus (Afinitor) for breast cancer, which was also considered under the PACE process.

Trastuzumab is used to treat some types of gastric cancer. During the PACE meeting participants highlighted that there are currently no other treatment options for patients and that trastuzumab can improve overall survival and progression-free survival and is well tolerated. Trastuzumab was also considered under SMC’s decision making process for medicines to treat extremely rare (ultra orphan) conditions.

For more details, go to: http://www.scottishmedicines.org.uk/About_SMC/Latest_news/News_Articles/October_2015_decisions_news_release