A DRUGS company has taken the unusual step of requesting a review after the use of a new cancer treatment on the NHS was blocked in Scotland.
Earlier this year the Scottish Medicines Consortium, which decides which new drugs should be available on prescription, rejected the use of abiraterone acetate before chemotherapy in men with advanced prostate cancer.
It is understood the same treatment helped extend the life of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
The pharmaceutical company Janssen has asked SMC to set up an Independent Review Panel to re-examine the decision.
Trials have shown the drug can help patients live a few months longer and have a better quality of life, with less unpleasant symptoms.
However, the drug costs around £35,602 per patient a year and although the company had offered SMC a confidential discount, the price was still said to be "substantial".
In a statement, SMC said: "In this instance, the committee felt there was insufficient evidence about the overall benefits of using abiraterone at the pre-chemotherapy stage in the treatment pathway... Despite applying the increased flexibility that the Patient Access Scheme (discount) allows, SMC was unable to recommend abiraterone due to concerns that the benefits may not justify the additional cost to NHS Scotland."
Since 2002, when SMC was set up, they have convened six independent review panels.
Mark Hicken, managing director of Janssen UK & Ireland, said: "Given that the evidence we submitted fully meets the Scottish Medicines Consortium criteria for end of life medicines we hope they will now expedite this review and agree a way to make this important medicine routinely available before chemotherapy for all eligible men with metastatic prostate cancer in Scotland."
Three years ago SMC gave the green light for men with advanced prostate cancer to receive abiraterone acetate after chemotherapy.
Patients can also make individual submissions to request the drug earlier in their treatment.
Abiraterone was discovered in the UK by scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research and is routinely available to patients in around 70 countries across the world.
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