January 9, 2015
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
The U.K’s National Health Service Cancer Drugs Fund plans to release a report next week that reevaluates the costs and reimbursement of 43 high-priced cancer medications, news that has many large pharmaceuticals nervous. In anticipation of some of their drugs being cut or dropped from reimbursement, a number of pharmaceutical companies, notably Novartis , are fighting back.
Anticipating that its cancer drug, Afinitor, will be cut or dropped from the list, a Novartis spokesperson said the CDF’s methodology is “unacceptable as it is insufficiently robust and transparent.” The company “strongly urged NHS England to stop the process now and enter into constructive dialogue with all stakeholders to find an equitable solution, including immediate steps to reform the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) process.”
The Cancer Drugs Funds pays for treatments that are typically considered too expensive under England’s usual coverage program. A year ago the U.K. government increased the fund’s budget, but expenses outstripped the budget, causing the NHS to begin a cost-cutting review of most of the 43 drugs that were covered.
“We need to get a maximum value for every pound we spent through the CDF,” said Peter Clark, chair of the CDF, in a statement. “We can no longer sustain a position where were are funding drugs that don’t offer sufficient clinical benefit when drugs that will do more for patients who are coming on stream.”
Several companies, including Sanofi, Swiss-based Roche and Japan-based Eisai are urging the NHS England to re-negotiate discounts. Eisai has threatened legal action. The company is the largest Japanese pharmaceuticals investor in the U.K., with both R&D and manufacturing facilities in the country. “There is no arbitration mechanism,” said Haruo Naito, chief executive of Eisai in a statement, “so the only option that will remain is to go to court.” He also went on to question the U.K. as a place for biopharma investment because of the company’s “lack of clarity” in its approach to drug development and manufacturing.
Sanofi’s drug, Jevtana, is under review. “We are hugely shocked and disappointed at this decision against Jevtana,” said Tarja Stenvall, general manager for Sanofi in the U.K. in a statement. “We will do everything in our power to appeal this decision.”
Physicians have also come out publically to condemn the cuts, which have yet to be announced. It “implies that doctors have spent years prescribing ineffective treatments to patients, at an obvious cost to the NHS,” said Christopher Twelves, deputy director of Cancer Research U.K.’s Clinical Centre at St. James’s Hospital in Leeds in a statement. “I do not believe this is the case.”
