This is how they're going to treat you too. Becareful of what you
wish for.
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Cancer Patients Lose Shot at Longer Life in U.K. Cuts By David Altaner and Bruce Rule
Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Jack Rosser's doctor says taking Pfizer Inc.'s Sutent cancer drug may keep him alive long enough to see his 1-year-old daughter, Emma, enter primary school. The U.K.'s National Health Service says that's not worth the expense.
Rosser, 57, was told the cost of Sutent, 3,140 pounds ($4,650) per treatment for his advanced kidney cancer, was too high for the NHS -- the government agency that funds the nation's health care. The resident of the town of Kingswood, in southwest England, has appealed the decision twice, and next month may find out if his second plea is successful.
``It's immoral,'' Rosser's wife, Jenny, said. ``They are sentencing him to die.''
The NHS, which provides health care to all Britons and is funded by tax revenue, is spending about 100 billion pounds this fiscal year, or more than double what it spent a decade ago, as the cost of treatments increase and the population ages. The higher costs are forcing the NHS to choose between buying expensive drugs for terminal patients and providing more services for a wider number of people.
About 800 of 3,000 cancer patients lose their appeals for regulator-approved drugs each year because of cost, Canterbury- based charity Rarer Cancers Forum said. The U.K. is considering whether to make permanent a preliminary ruling that four medicines, including Sutent, are too expensive to be part of the government-funded treatment of advanced kidney cancer.
`It's Outrageous'
``It's outrageous,'' said Kate Spall, a full-time activist who has helped about 100 patients appeal NHS denials of cancer medicines. ``We are not asking for anything new or exciting or novel. We are asking for what the rest of the western world is getting.''
To help curb expenses, the government created the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, known as NICE, in 1999 to review medicines and recommend whether the NHS should fund them.
``There is a view that all treatments should be available. Unfortunately, that's not possible,'' said Peter Littlejohns, NICE's clinical and public health director. ``There is a limited pot of money.''
He said the four cancer drugs provide a ``marginal benefit at quite often an extreme cost'' and that the agency had to keep in mind that funds spent on the medicines could be used elsewhere to help others at a greater value. ``Those are the hidden patients, the ones who benefit from the things the NHS does spend money on,'' Littlejohns said.
NICE Review
NICE is reviewing its Aug. 7 preliminary recommendation that Sutent, Roche Holding AG and Genentech Inc.'s Avastin, Bayer AG and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s Nexavar, and Wyeth's Torisel shouldn't be funded in light of their cost of 20,000 pounds to 39,000 pounds a year per patient. All four medicines have been approved by European and U.S. regulators and are sold in other countries as well. A final ruling is expected in March.
While a drug is under review, the decision whether to pay for a therapy falls to the NHS's 156 local organizations, called trusts.
Of the 3,000 applications for exceptional funding for cancer patients a year, the most-requested drug was Sutent, said the Rarer Cancers Forum, which focuses on cancer cases that fall outside the more common ones such as colon, breast, lung and prostate.
Sutent, which stops cancer cells from dividing and chokes off a tumor's blood supply, was first approved for European use in July 2006. Kidney cancer sufferers taking the drug had a median survival rate of 26.4 months, according to a study presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology in May.
