Breast cancer drug ‘could force cuts in other NHS areas’

NICE’s decision to issue draft guidance for Herceptin, the Roche drug recently approved for use on women with early-stage HER-2 positive breast cancer, could force cuts elsewhere the NHS, according to a former NHS trust chairman.

Roy Lilley, warned that people should put the costs of Herceptin into context. If one billion pounds is spent on the drug then people have to remember that the NHS is already 500 million pounds in the red, he said.

Mr Lilley told BBC One’s Breakfast programme: “This does put cost pressures in the NHS and there is a limited pool of money, and it is true that if the cost of cancer drugs like Herceptin go up and we keep accepting them in as treatments then other things will have to go.”

He added: “It is not inconceivable that there will be waiting lists although it has to be said that there?s been a very clever public relations campaign behind Herceptin to get it accepted and I think that all the cancer charities will be watching very carefully to make sure that anyone who would benefit from Herceptin gets it.”

Mr Lilley concluded by saying that NHS trust managers would be hard-pushed in trying to spread the money over the department while paying for new drugs like Herceptin.

Herceptin’s approval has been largely welcomed by cancer groups such as Cancer Research UK and Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

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