Thousands of women with incurable breast cancer say they are being ‘robbed of precious time with their loved ones’ after being denied life-extending drugs available in Scotland.
In what has been hailed a ‘dark day’ for patients, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence watchdog said Enhertu is not cost-effective.
Trials of the drug found it boosted the time the cancer was held at bay from seven months to over two years – results that were called ‘mind-blowing’ by experts.
Charities and patients said they were in ‘absolute shock’ at the decision, which comes months after it was approved north of the border.
Labelled a ‘wonder drug’ by oncologists, it is also available in 13 other European countries, as well as the US and Canada.
Last night, health officials were accused of creating a ‘cruel post code lottery’ in which ‘women’s lives in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are somehow worth less’.
In a sign of growing anger, a Breast Cancer Now petition rallying against the decision had reached more than 6,000 signatures in just a few hours.
Baroness Delyth Morgan, the charity’s chief executive, blamed a ‘broken system’, adding new methods for evaluating health technologies at Nice for ‘denying secondary breast cancer patients access to potentially life-extending medicines that may have previously been approved on the NHS.’
She said: ‘This is a dark day. This means that thousands of mums, daughters, sisters and wives face knowing a treatment that could have been a lifeline for them exists, but remains out of reach.
‘Meanwhile women in Scotland have been granted access to it.’
Hellbound and Down 