The Sunday Times reports that “The National Health Service is providing dying cancer patients with drugs that are five times less effective than those available privately and is refusing to treat them if they try to buy medicines themselves.” For example, Sutent, and anti cancer drug used to treat kidney cancer that extend patient’s lives by 6 months but cost £2,200 a month compared to the standard NHS drug that cost £800 a month is not available on the NHS. Likewise, Erbitux, costing about £3,000 a month but more potent in reducing bowel tumours than irinotecan is 13 times more available to patients in France than in Britain.

So far the position of the NHS has been that patients paying for “top up” medicines would not be able to receive state-funded care. An alternative would be to allow “co-payment” whereby a patient is allowed to contribute to the cost of its treatment whilst benefiting from state-funded care with a risk to create a two-tiers NHS, though with the existing private sector, it would be more accurate to say a three-tiers NHS.

There is another solution, used by the Thai to provide treatment to people affected by HIV and by the USA to stockpile enough Tamiflu for an avian flux epidemics that never happened or for the production of an antibiotic (Cyprofolxacin) following the threat of mail-born anthrax attack: Compulsory licensing. In the former case CL was issued, in the two latter the threat was enough to ensure availability.

Nothing is stopping the government and the NHS to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry and in doing so, to use all legal means available, including compulsory licensing.

[email_link]

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.